THE KIDS AREN'T ALRIGHT
by bitteravocado
Summary: Some things are too terrible to grasp at once, and other things - naked, sputtering, indelible in their horror - are too terrible to ever really grasp at all. "I am not disappearing," she realizes after a story-long moment. Semi-SI OC.
1. one

**avo:** just something chill to take my mind off other things, although I think the content may contradict 'chill', but you know, there's something strangely terrifying and strangely romantic about Konoha in all its silent, rabbit-sure stabbing and politics and children running along rooftops like cats. also, I live in australia so I put 'u's in some words and use metric measurement and celsius. sometimes.

and finally, present tense is actually pretty fun. some of the mood (or perhaps more accurately, the _moodiness_ ) of this is largely inspired by _Of the River and the Sea_ by Aleycat4eva, but ye that's about the extent of that.

so! expect many 'welcome to night vale' or 'the secret history' quotes as pre-contextual openings hur hur. and I think I might need a beta too.

* * *

 _SOME THINGS ARE TOO TERRIBLE TO GRASP AT ONCE_

* * *

The story begins with something like this:

Long summer. Short night. She is six months old and wakes up melting. Her room is too hot, too dry and the occasional night breeze from her window is not enough. She wriggles out from the blankets and finds solace in pressing her tiny legs to the half-cool railings of her crib. Some nights she could fall asleep to the electrical humming downstairs in the freezer section of their grocery store, but other nights, her thoughts are heavier than her eyelids.

Konoha feels like that one summer she spent on her grandparents' farm (one very, very distant lifetime ago) – the cicadas chirp so sweetly and the starry void is far better company than _traffic and blinking artificial lights_ and _how the city-glow is evident a hundred miles away_. But the village also smells like dust – like dirt after rain. It is old and rotting (like a root) and lives deep in the past. Its vast and systematic history with its architectures and its _fire-shadows_ , the horrors of its mythologies and the heat of its summers, its rain and its rivers, its algebra and its fire, its theological and metaphysical controversies, are _awful._ Everything reeks of an odd, sideways-tilting militaristic authoritarian state, but she supposes she sort of doesn't mind it ( _she_ _doesn't mind it?_ ). More pressingly, she feels like she doesn't belong, and that may not be completely untrue. She thinks she has been reborn.

Suiren Hyōzan is born in the middle of winter where all the dairy and dairy by-products in their store starts to curd halfway through the day. She starts out chill and simple, pulling hair and crapping her pants on good days. When she is a little older, her mother takes her on mid-morning strolls down the main street and she snatches at the foggy tendrils her breath leaves. Her parents start to read to her around the same time and she picks up the language like she's always spoken it (like it's always been bubbling at the back of her tongue and once remembered it all gushes out). The names of the four Almighty Hokages and their legends and songs resound in her head, and for a while she doesn't get it, what kind of a majestic, all-shining, omnipresent, invincible and near-immortal leader calls themselves the _fire-shadow?_

She grows a little older- _she grows a little older and then-_

All of sudden-

Suiren sat on her mother's lap at the cashier one afternoon and she could name the customers _before_ they so much as talk to her mother.

( _She knows things.)_

That observation alone terrifies her, but then she thinks back further and further and she starts to remember. The girl can recite the whole known and _unknown_ history of her world, and she has been four and twenty-four once and has known an entirely different history of rise and fall. She can speak a tongue not spoken in any of the streets, and then there's the whole– _and_ _then there's the whole_ _ **chakra**_ _concept and she can feel it burning and cooling, mint-fresh like torrential rain and thunder if she tries hard enough oh_ -

Sleep doesn't help much. Suiren stays up late at night ( _all night_ ) and swallows books whole to forget things. She reads what she can get (her parents don't have anything decent on medical texts or fuinjutsu but she is almost one and she has time, she thinks). Sometimes the girl can even hear the sound a two-tailed cat makes deep into the night as she studies (and she is studying hard). She mistakes it for the _creaking_ of her mother's footsteps down the hallway and dives under her covers to fake-sleep with the book buried under her pillow. Her mother probably knows anyway, but Suiren is drowning texts impossible for her age and some of the ninja have eyes _where_ _there shouldn't be eyes_ and Suiren is wary. Sometimes.

One day, she is fourteen months old and _so many_ children run down the main road to the **ACADEMY** early in the morning to learn how to kill, starting with their bare hands. (The fastest way to a man's heart is a bilateral dissection on the upper left region of the sternum _,_ unless they're going at it from behind where they have to twist around the spinal cord and that gets tricky.) The kids all have red hands and bruises afterwards and Suiren knows this because she watches them every afternoon. She can even spot someone she remembers some days (grocery stores are popular among everyone, including ninjas, and she always – _alwaysalwaysalways_ – watches her mother at the cash register. Suiren likes to examine each customer's face carefully and once she even meets young Itachi Uchiha who is four years older than her but he looks twenty and his eyes are _hollow_ and his knuckles are _raw_.)

* * *

At the turning of the New Year (where old gods tread new paths to her house), the girl is one and pays her respects to the only temple in Konoha and the Stone. She calls it the Stone because her father calls it the Stone and 'The Memorial Stone for Konohagakure's Heroes' is too long and a shitty name. She feels like she should be surprised when her father (in his dark yukata and frowny face) names over half of his friends on the Stone, but she isn't really surprised because nothing can freak her out anymore after being reborn.

Her father's head dips and eyes drop close. She copies. When he opens his nautical grey eyes again, he whispers something in her ear:

 _Some things are monstrous._

She wants to know if he's talking about foxes.

Her father is a strange man with three strings of six pearls dangling off each ear. He walks like someone trained in the shinobi arts, but he isn't because he's told her he isn't. They haven't spent much time together as father and daughter, but she believes him.

Suiren is one and whispers to herself, "I am not disappearing."

* * *

Sometimes, there are these 'especially bad nights' where she likes to trace invisible lines on the wall, as if mapping out long lost worlds. She thinks she is forgetting something ( _again_ ) and it is something important. She isn't sure what and she hates it. Hates it - _hatesithatesit._ She doesn't feel like a child then, and everything is like a dream (past, present and future), especially the distant image of a foreign woman with cimmerian-dark eye bags and embarrassing moments of forgetting about her stethoscope and walking down to Starbucks from her college. But none of those ancient, resurfacing memories of another lifetime is really important anymore because there is something on Suiren's shoulders and it's called the _weight of the whole world_. (She knows things.)

Although there are good nights too, and on good nights, the girl is just Suiren. On good nights, she is just a one-year-old kid living above **HYO'S GROCERY MART** with dark hair and darker eyes and it's hard to be angry when she can't even remember why.

* * *

It's Tuesday late afternoon; the sun hangs low and weary and the rice cooker is slowly melting. At the sound of footsteps leading to his house, Itachi's head snaps up from the living room table, "They're here okaasan."

A brief moment passes before his mother replies from down in the kitchen, "Can you get it please?" He sets down his book. The door opens just as his mother's guest is about to knock.

"Good afternoon, Hyōzan-san," he greets respectfully.

"Hello Itachi-kun," the lady smiles and light illuminates the hollows of her cheekbones.

A gift bag is promptly shoved in his face.

Itachi's nearly neck snaps back before he smoothly accepts the housewarming gift. He cradles the bag to one side and spies a dully familiar girl, barely brushing past his elbows. The mother smiles and places a hand on the top of her daughter's head.

"How are you today, Itachi-kun?" The boy steps aside into the genkan and sets down two pairs of slippers. The lady follows and guides her daughter in by the shoulders.

"I am well, thank you. My mother's in the kitchen and she'll be with you shortly."

"Senka!" His mother suddenly bursts from the living room entrance, mittens on her hands and glee the likes of which Itachi has _never_ seen before (excluding that one time she accidentally shoved her feet into his father's face on the lounge).

"Mikoto!" Senka squeals and flies forward. The two women excitedly hug and shoot rapid-fire sentences at each other (mostly about the recent influx of rare Dragon-Lobsters from Land of Water, Itachi notes dimly). It doesn't take very long for him to notice Hyōzan's daughter staring at him (although it may more accurate to say _gaping open mouthed with a vacant expression,_ in a way that implies 'a want to possess his body').

He meets her awkward stare and offers a simple, "Can I help you, Hyōzan-san?"

Suiren stiffens (her spine groaning like an old man's) and she corrects him, words tumbling from her mouth, "Oh just call me Suiren! Or Sui-chan! Or- _or_ even Sui-Sui! I don't mind!"

Itachi regards at her with chill distaste.

Her toes curl in embarrassment but she clears her throat, "How's your baby brother? And can I um-" her hands gesture wildly, "Uh- _see_ , or like _meet_ your uh- brother? Sasuke? Bro?"

"Sasuke," he begins tersely, "is asleep."

"Oh-" Suiren blinks. "But I'll be like, _really_ quiet. I swear. I promise. On my heart." She points to a spot just a little to the left of her sternum with the accuracy of a cardiothoracic surgeon. There is a _tiny_ resigned sigh from him that sends a flush flooding her face. He turns around and leads her on a slow walk to his brother's nursery. They pass several shoji doors with the warm, afternoon light still flicking through the seams. Then he stops at the end of the hallway, and presses a finger to his mouth, before sliding the door open. Suiren slips in after him. A breath escapes her.

" _Oh_ ," she exhales, "he's adorable."

Something _warm and gooey_ (like milk and honey and shrill summer birds) overcomes Itachi's whole face in agreement – everything from his cheeks to the right corner of his lip is lit up with _love_. (She thinks it's adoration for a moment and it takes her a little longer of staring and blinking to realize it is more than just simple adoration. It is love like she has never seen before.

Oh, she finally understands. He must really love his brother.)

Her mind snaps back into business like an elastic band. "How old is he?" She asks, a hand resting on Sasuke's crib.

"Five weeks," Itachi replies quietly, one finger sneakily grabbed by his little brother's outstretched hand. Her eyebrows scrunch up. _Five weeks!_ Something wet trails down her cheek fleetingly and she doesn't even realize it before Itachi _stares at her_. Real staring this time—not just looking.

"Sorry," Suiren whispers and rubs her face. He stills. "Oh don't worry," she waves a hand casually, "I'm nearly two – it's okay." She's nearly two and it doesn't make any of this okay. "Itachi- can I call you Itachi? I'm going to call you Itachi – sometimes, there are these decisions you can make, and you're going to think they're great. You're going to think that it's the best decision and that everything will work out perfectly, because you're Itachi and all, but it's not going to work out perfectly. It's not. I know I'm only one – _nearly two_ —but _please,_ please, please, please: if there ever comes a time where you have to choose a very difficult decision, remember that there are more ways than one to go about things. _Always._ "

He's giving her a weird mix of pensiveness and perplexity and Suiren's not sure whether that's a good thing or not. It's hard to get a read on Itachi.

"Alright well maybe you might get it later, or maybe it won't even come to that," there is a stupid, hopeful quirk on her lips and it's choking her on the inside. "But I think-" a deep, shuddering breath resonates in her lungs, " _I think_ that people shouldn't take all the responsibility and pressure onto themselves." Her eyes snap to Sasuke gurgling at her hair. "And that not everyone will behave exactly to your image of them. People change."

Itachi retrieves his finger from Sasuke and looks at her, long and hard, "Thank you, Hyōzan-san." He is unreadable as ever. "I appreciate your concern."

' _Oh_ ,' Suiren deflates, 'That's really not it.'

But then her mother is calling her from the other end of the house. The sun is setting and Fugaku Uchiha is back. Suiren spends the rest of evening at Itachi's house with her mother and meets the head of the Uchiha clan. He is tall and brooding and sombre like a watchful eagle, and piece-by-piece, Suiren thinks she can link the similarities between Sasuke and his father.

(Fugaku thinks Senka Hyōzan is an idiot. Her child is walking and talking like someone who _isn't a child_ and that woman isn't even bothering trying to hide it. Some jounin would snatch that girl up in an instant, apprentice or Academy wise, especially with those dark hair and dark eyes. She's got fire in her blood and that always burns brighter in the dark.)

* * *

 **extra** : Okkkay if you're not the type to read author's notes, then you can skip this I guess. I usually don't read a/ns either (unless I was confused as fuck reading a chapter) but here are some things you should know:

1\. suiren's like twenty months old here (a year and eight months) and I get that it's _really_ weird for us to see kids reading _texts,_ but honestly i'd imagine this kind of a thing to be pretty normal in naruto-verse. we have seven year olds on the battle field i think we can have a toddler hiding medical texts under her pillow. but what fugaku means in that last paragraph is that the hyozans aren't even _shinobi,_ and in all honesty if suiren was a normal civilian kid, she wouldn't even be considered for the academy. but konoha is built on militarism and remember that sob-story about that aburame kid getting picked up by danzo before he's even in the academy? ye. so ye.

2\. :)))) we all know what's appearing next chapter! haha! fun! (pls go along with me and if you actually do know or think you know, omg thank y)

3\. I'm dropping heaps of hints on suiren and if anyone can picks those up you're amazing $$$


	2. minotaurs are red

**your omnipotent narrator** : yo yo yo, im back lol.

 **edit** \- so at first I liked the original, but as time went on and I read and re-read, I found it _a little_ too disjointed and lacking in detail. so here is a new and improved chapter two!

* * *

Home is where the heart is. We found it one day in the sink. It hums things late at night, but they are not songs.

 _WTNV #50: Capital Campaign_

* * *

One day, in the middle of the night, Suiren blinks awake and discovers something is _wrong_. The rattling of her window grows and grows until a crack splits down with jagged fury. Her breath catches in her throat.

"Mommy _?_ " Panic seizes her eyes to the cold little black glare of her open doorway. She wets her lips and tries again, voice pathetic and shrill, "Daddy?" Something at the back of her head thinks calling out is a very bad idea. " _Anyone?"_

The howling of something lost floods her ears. It's a disquieting twist of screaming and crying and hoarse yelling at monsters (or houses with the lights switched off), and slowly, insipidly, it invades her heart. Her face scrunches up. She sucks in a breath. _An ocean rises in her vision-_

Suiren stops breathing.

'Oh my god,' she realises what is happening.

(Once in primary school, her third-grade class read a book about a girl who moves into a new house and discovers a mysterious doorway in her bedroom. There is a crawling, pallid hand with glistening red nails like oxygenated blood, a talking cat that does not need a name, and the king of rats piling and piling until he grows as tall as a man. _Coraline._ Some things are monstrous.)

Through the cracks of her windows, Suiren spies a tenebrous orange figure. It's the hunched back of a four-footed creature and hell has forgotten it _._ ( _She can_ _feel its chakra._ )

She tumbles out of her bed faster than stray lightning. Making it to the other end of her room, the girl presses her back against the wall in a small, small ball. Her hands weave a lock around her legs. She begins to shudder violently.

'DRSABCD _,_ ' she plays out the only thing she knows. 'Danger, Response, Send for help, Airways, Breathing, CPR, Defibrillation.'

Her breathing slows. She is okay. She stills. This is fine, this is okay—she's known this would happen- _she has always known this would happen so why has she never thought about it?_

The sound of creaking stuffs her ears. It is so **loud** _._ (It couldn't be-)

Her room falls apart from ceiling to floor with an ear-splitting crack as awful as broken bones (Suiren would know, she's seen many broken bones and _rooms don't just break apart)_ with a flash of something red. A sob catches in her throat.

The floor drops out beneath her. She slams into concrete.

* * *

There was this other time in third grade where Suiren had a vivid nightmare about _buttons for eyes,_ a house that emits a low, guttural, rumbling sound, and a decrepit, hexagonal, carnivorous library. She was terrified to lose everything to it at the time: her bed, her parents and her friends, to a _dream_ that didn't make any sense.

She forgets about that dream until she is dreaming of it again. The eyes spin and spin and spin and spin and flash red at odd hours of the morning; the house is made of paper and _howls,_ and the library- _the library_ _does not exist_ , save for a strange sealed sake bottle some decades old. At one stage in the dreaming, she swears she has been over this dream a long, long time ago (at eighteen), before she remembers (and wakes in _agony_ ) that she isn't past eighteen yet.

Suiren shoots up like a beansprout from a bed.

There is a moment where the girl couldn't see past the blood _pounding_ on her temple from sitting up too fast, but that clears. A pained groan escapes her when her temples start to burn. She rubs the bump achingly.

"Hey," someone at her bedside rubs her back. "How are you feeling?"

Her dark eyes glaze over. "Shitty," Suiren decides and turns towards the person. "Shitty _-ly_?" The nurse starts.

"Okay… you need to sit back sweetie—probably shouldn't be moving around so much just yet."

Suiren allows herself to be eased back onto the pillow. Then it hits her dead.

"Mom- Dad!" She shoots back up, " _Where are they_?"

Nurse-san stills. Her mouth opens and closes a few times, as if indecision has overcome her. (And the world, for a single instant, seems oddly blank and oddly dreary, as if it has been stripped of all stars and warmth.) She puffs the pillow a few times, takes a hold of Suiren's shoulders and eases her back.

"Do you have any uncles, aunts, grandparents, who you know of?"

Suiren feels terribly small.

"Close family friends? Or anyone your mom or dad knew?"

She thinks of Naruto. She thinks of Sasuke. She thinks ' _how many other children must feel like this in the world'_ and grows fond of the idea that she does not really mind this ( _this_ : being homeless and roofless and motherless and fatherless-). She pinches the pad of her thumb. Numb.

"Yeah. My mom had a friend called Mikoto-san…"

* * *

Suiren furls and unfurls her fingers from the sheets and counts big figures until each muscle in her body relaxes and her arms and joints melt into something boneless. (Inch-by-inch, she is giving herself to the curmurring of her chakra.) It is holds a tang today and she can feel it burning all the way up to her tongue: livid, strange and full-blooded. Sometimes it is sleepy, soft, droopy movements, and other times, it is lightning constellations and tilted moonscapes—all bristling with desire.

And today she mourns. She allows that much- _that much._

* * *

No one at the hospital is quite concerned or idle enough to give any heed to a nearly-two-year-old hanging around like some hooded figure at a dog park. So Suiren makes do with digging around the front garden for roly-poly bugs. They are so cool. It's crepuscular blue-hued grey against the dirt of the world and brilliant sunshine that lets Suiren count her blotchy bruises against her bones. _Thirteen_ — including the one on her temple— _thirteen._

"Sui-chan?"

She looks up.

"Mikoto-san!" Her collection of roly-polys tumbles from her skirt as she flings herself at her mother's friend ( _Susanoo-no-Mikoto_ , kunoichi, _murderess_ , mother's friend).

Mikoto hugs her tight. She tells Suiren ' _I'm here to pick you up'_ , and Suiren believes her _._ Mikoto smells faintly of olive oil and something like paprika and the warmth of mother's milk. Suiren is beginning to forget.

And in the house of the great Uchiha clan's head, Mikoto Uchiha hands her a hot cup of chrysanthemum tea. The slowly blooming flowers float up on the surface—Suiren dreams it looks like water when it holds the moon.

"Thank you," the girl cradles the cup in her tiny hands. (Sometimes she stares at the fat on her fingers and wonder _how in the seven hells_ is she going to perform surgery with those, before 'oh right' – she isn't a surgeon anymore and won't be seeing anyone's insides for a while yet.)

"That's my pleasure," Mikoto smiles at her from across the table. "I'll help you get settled in for bed after dinner. Things have been terribly busy around here."

Suiren's sure it has been, but her voice is little louder than a murmur in response, "How long can I stay with you?"

Mikoto blinks. "Well, when you turn five you can apply for a pension from the village and you'll be put on the waiting list for housing of your own, but you can stay with us as long as you need to."

"No orphanage," it's relief that floods her.

"No orphanage," Mikoto affirms.

 _No orphanage._

At dinner that night, Suiren sticks out like an awkward, sore thumb at the table. Fugaku treats her like she isn't here and like she's always been here – not even batting an eye at the stranger sitting at his table, which is pretty cool of him, to be honest.

Itachi is tactfully civil and as distantly polite as one could be towards a temporary household member, and both of them disappear outside for training after dinner without further conversation. Suiren would've liked to follow and watch, but she doesn't really want to impose any more than she already has.

When it is finally bedtime and the girl is sitting alone on her little futon in the guest room, the ache of _home_ finally swallows her as sudden as a sparrow darting past. She hunches over in a little ball in hopes of chasing the pains away, but that doesn't really work. Nothing really does when she doesn't even have a home to look forward to. The image of the orange thing (honestly, _orange_ ), with details of each strand of fur stark against the night and _drowning_ in that hateful aphotic chakra, is bruised whole and livid under her eyelids. Her sleep is full of that hot scar.

This is how Suiren spends her second birthday – wrapped in the knit of a prestigious house of fire. The shops on the main street have long started to straighten their spines (especially with the coming of the New Year), but **HYO'S GROCERY MART** remains a thing ragged but breathing. Her mother's flowerbeds on the balcony have vanished mysteriously (which isn't really surprising, considering half of the second story is missing) and electricity still sometimes sparks in the freezer section.

Suiren avoids the store—or she tries to anyway. Mikoto could be terrifying in her persistence, and Sasuke has to get that from _someone_.

"If we can clean this up, I'm sure it can sell for a good price," the hand on her head is comforting. The girl agrees. Mikoto helps her clean out the crumbling rooms and they carry three boxes of dusty things back to the Uchiha residence. Suiren rediscovers her favourite mug in half, her father's yearbook, a few rotten apples and three pearl earrings. She pockets the glowing earrings and continues on.

'I remember everything, I forget nothing.'

The next week, a bulldozer comes and runs the store into the ground. A sign is placed out front afterwards. One man who doesn't mind rebuilding broken things buys the piece of land, and a family of five moves into the space above the new bookstore. Suiren is made rich overnight, but in the space between her fourth and fifth rib, develops a dangerous cloud.

* * *

 **extra** : for anyone interested, suiren's name is read as 'sui-' for 'deep; profound' and '-ren' for 'kneading over fire' or 'refine metals'.

also i'd like to clarify something: suiren is a child _first_ and someone reborn _second_. she has the intelligence and knowledge of someone who has lived ten times more than two years but her brain is fundamentally undeveloped (as it should be). she's a kid and is still growing, learning and working out a place for herself in her world, so much of her motives and her actions are childlike, despite her words and thinking being highly coherent and eloquent. it's a pretty bad combination (immature motivations with highly developed thinking) so she tends to be overestimated by adults. it's my personal headcanon that children in narutoverse tend to be pushed out of the 'kid's zone' immediately if they appear even the slightest bit advanced for their age. the opposite occurs for civilians or less prodigious (and even 'normal') children. the talented are given no boundaries between 'adult and child', while the less 'shinobi-inclined' have rules and regulations and limitations placed on them. i hope this explains why a two year old is given so much freedom here lol. and maybe also why someone thought it was a great idea to hand five year olds weapons.

if you guys have any questions or wtfs, pls drop a pm or comment. i will answer to the best of my abilities. :)))


	3. the tragedy of the commons

**your ubiquitous author** : prepare to witness some major character development. Hehehe.

(also if you haven't noticed, i have completely re-written chapter two. pls pls re-read. lots of things have been cut or re-done. you will be very confused. i am exaggerating a little. also i idk how we got from objective third person to 'wtf is this half-subjective third person, half-first person pov' lmao love life.)

THANK ENBI FOR HELPING ME PLAN THIS STORY OUT OTHERWISE YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER HAVE SEEN THIS CHAPTER

* * *

The rainfall in June—

the poems I've pasted

to the walls

peeled off, but leaves traces.

- _Basho_

* * *

Buckets of water slosh from the sky as her arms extend and fingers stretch out; Suiren hums, low and dream-like. Her fingers reach and reach until she can hear the bones under her skin groaning under the dull amplitude of rain. The joints in her shoulders loosen with a _plop._ She sighs.

Bending down, the entirety of her palms press flat against the floor for ten counts. It's early morning, her stomach is running on empty and she can feel in it the strain of her stretches, the waver of her hands, and the sudden light-headedness that hits her when she stands up again.

There is a light knock at the shoji door.

Suiren twists around, "Good morning Mikoto-san!"

"Good morning. Breakfast is ready," Mikoto smiles and takes a step back from the doorway. "How did you sleep?"

"Good," she doesn't hesitate. Five months in and everything is routine. The girl slipped into the family like she never left. (Except, Itachi keeps his distance, and Suiren gives him his distance. _Personal space_ , goes unsaid.)

"Hello Sauce-kun," Suiren chirps and pulls a face at a blabbering Sasuke. He responds by slapping his fruit with a squeal. Just a little over eight months old, and in all honesty, Sasuke has got to be the prettiest kid she's ever seen. He's got the whole _full dark lashes_ ; _marble-skin, soul-deep eyes_ look going on (–how did he turn so ugly). She could not wait for him to grow older, and Suiren-onee-san will definitely protect his virtue! (They are nineteen months apart but she is twenty-four going on two and has the old soul of a humble tortoise.)

Mikoto passes a bowl of steaming fried rice to her (' _oh my god my fav_ ') and she takes it to her spot on the table. Itachi is already there, steadily plowing through his miso soup and steamed fish. He gives her a glance.

"Hi," she drawls and struggles to clamber up to her seat. (Suiren misses her old height everyday, every moment. She towered over most men once _._ )

"Good morning," Itachi replies placidly. She eyes the scroll set neatly next to him, his perfectly groomed hair and ironed clothes-

"Are you going to the Academy today," her chopsticks nudge at large clumps of fried rice. It's clumsy and lacks the fine motor control she keeps thinking she has, but Suiren grits her teeth and tries harder.

Itachi pauses in the middle of eating. "Yes," he answers, "I am."

"Oh," she swallows a lump, unsure and insecure with this new development. "Are you excite-" Her throat constricts without warning. Itachi doesn't get a chance to react or answer because Fugaku Uchiha appears from the hallway like a dark spirit re-entering its stronghold.

The head of the clan takes a seat at the head of the table without a word, but gives a _wide_ breadth of distance from Sasuke. His son likes throwing food almost as much as he will like to spit fire at people, and for a crawling, teething kid, his throwing arm is _terrifyingly accurate_.

(Sasuke coos at his pa and a stream of saliva drools out.

' _Ew.'_ Her fried rice doesn't look so appetizing anymore. Mikoto flies over with a tissue and Sasuke shrieks happily at her.)

Itachi sets down his chopsticks and rises first, "I will be leaving first."

"Have a good day," his mother calls as she holds Sasuke's bowl. Discreetly, a slipper flies at her husband's shin under the table.

"Make the clan proud," Fugaku grumbles immediately. Sasuke smacks his baby table with a wonderful, articulate squeal, but he hits the edge of his plate and it's sent flying like a knife. Mikoto catches it with catlike quickness—white wrist snapping up in the air. She dabs at her son's mouth, not even blinking.

' _Okay…'_ Suiren's heart weakens and wilts. "I've finished too." She makes a speedy exit for the comfort of her room at the incline of Fugaku-san's head. This whole clan is like a _glance from god_ and Suiren feels very sad being nothing. She will bury her head deeper in her attempts to recall lyrics from the tip of her tongue.

* * *

The first time Fugaku Uchiha discovers Suiren sprawled out in front of a towering bookshelf in the family study with her face planted firmly in one of the many history books, he doesn't say a thing. A lingering, weird look is all he spares, and he disappears before the girl even realizes what's happened. Her face burns more vividly than the tomatoes Sasuke loves.

'What if,' Suiren broods in her hiding hole- _room,_ as she reconsiders her position in this household, 'What if he's _waiting_ for me to lower my guard before kicking my baby chicken ass over to T &I?' Her feet pause in mid-step. 'No, no, if he wanted me dead I would be dead already.' She slaps a hand over her face, 'maybe he just really didn't give a fuck- wait… could that even happen? _Ughh_.' She buries her face into her pillow. 'Fuck it, it is.'

So it's months before the head of the clan brings up anything that rhymes with _injure_ (ninja), and by that time Suiren has already devoured half of the books in the study, without guilt.

"From tomorrow onwards, you will begin training in preparation for the Academy."

Suiren twists to look at Mikoto for guidance. _Isn't she awfully young for this, she's only two-_

Oh.

Mikoto is smiling at her like always. (There are no children here.) The girl's shoulders strain to sag but she forces her whole body to stay upright.

'I can do this,' Suiren thinks. Then: _'_ And even if I can't, I have to. _'_

"Of course, Fugaku-san," she gives a clever imitation of a smile.

* * *

Maybe at one stage, she should've _reconsidered_ _everything_. Why do Fugaku and Mikoto treat her so simply—so easily, like _she belongs?_ Why does Fugaku give an almost-stranger's child access to the family library? She is Konoha-born and raised, _but the Uchiha stick together._ Always.

(It is in _blood_. It is _fire-burnt_ and _inscripted in rock_.)

Suiren has spent 0.9/2 years of her life drowning in others' pity. (The look on the brand-new bookstore owner's face; the pretty blonde lady her mother knew in the flower store; noodle-shop-jii-san's wonky smile.) She knows she does not really belong here. She thinks she should have been killed long ago.

But still: " _I am a drop of gold_ ," she chants very, very quietly and stares down hard and god-like at her fingers. " _I am molten matter returned from the core of the earth to tell you interior things."_ She will not forget this forbidden, foreign tongue. She will not forget who she is. But, some part of Suiren is not cynical (- _even though she is Konohagakure born and raised, blood of People and Spirit of Fire_ ), some part of her wishes for new!New and Improved! Version 0.91837465382048463 for $2.95! Some part of her really wishes this could be a fresh beginning. She was so cynical once, but now everything is different.

* * *

Fugaku starts out with little things: stretches (different to ones she is familiar with), running laps, katas, weaponry, scenarios, strategies and hand seals. Unsure of what degree of progress he's looking for, Suiren just tries her best, and trying her best is all she can do because this shit _is tough._ It's everything she's never known and everything she's seen before but applied in the most bloody, murderous way _(the fastest way to a man's heart is through the sternum_ ).And while her body is bendy and malleable, she's only two and barely reaches Fugaku's knee. Suiren's got short legs and clumsy fingers and isn't quite safe around knives yet—but she keeps going because she has to. ( _It hurts to become._ )

Itachi sometimes watches her move through the stances. They've never trained together ('oh hell to the no-no'), but sometimes he starts his warm up just as she ends, and sometimes she begins warming up just as Itachi picks up the pieces of kunai and himself. Her eyes starve for progress and the flashes of brief fire, the snap and crack of bone meeting bone, between father and son, all disquiet her heart. _This is what she needs to become._

Her katas start out choppy and broken at first; center of gravity wavering as Suiren moves, slow and pensive. Her thighs burn like no tomorrow—she's not allowed to straighten her legs when practicing. And while none of her throws get the bulls-eye, she can land it on the board at least. The laps eventually begin to bulk up too, going from zero to a hundred in a matter of weeks, and although she manages to remember and recall hand seals with ease, Suiren stumbles through them brutally when performing it herself. _She knows she can do it so much faster, so much easier-_ and it kills her. (Hates this body; hates this age _._ )

The worst ones are probably the scenarios Fugaku hits her with. They're so, so _horrifyingly_ absurd. Is she really going to encounter a legion of trained and organised militants when the mission only suggested they might engage with stray bandits? Would a member of her squad really wipe out everyone, leaving her for dead and missing an arm? Is it really possible for her to continue a mission without an arm? _Can chakra even perform when missing a set of vital outputs?_ It goes unsaid she picks the obvious answers and gets them all wrong. (Shame is so much worse than failure, Suiren learns.)

But some hours in, a few weeks of practice, and she can slowly follow Fugaku's slow and steady instruction—from hand seals, to katas, to throwing sharp things quietly.

" _Tsk_. Your lower body is where the power comes from, not your arms," a warm hand captures the force of her fist, and without warning, Suiren finds herself planted face first in dirt. "Faster this time."

Her _raw-red_ hands twitch from strain, but the girl breathes deeply. She gets up. Fugaku repeats his series of attacks and blocks and she follows each and every one of them through, eyes wide and breathless. He lands bruises but she doesn't waver; doesn't flinch. Her stomach rumbles monstrously.

Although Suiren's fingers will take puberty for the baby fat to disappear, soon she can perform and recall every known hand seal (and every unknown, obscure and completely jutsu and clan-based ones). The sharp things she throws begin to land closer and closer to the red dot in the center like imminent doom, and while her strategies and answers will get better with real experience, she will always have her twenty-four years of knowledge from a previous life.

 _(The fastest way to a man's heart is-)_

And Suiren no longer sleeps without dreaming.

* * *

This is the only time she has ever felt truly alive in the motionless place of pre-Naruto Uzumaki: every afternoon she basks in the sun on the porch and counts each new bruise and cut and scrape after training, and the more she trains, _the more she wants to know._ It feels like progress.

For example, seals are so cool and you can do just about anything with them— _so why isn't everyone using them_ –although she doesn't really know how they work herself. Medicine is startling developed in a place with limited technology, and there is a severe, detailed lack of publications and medical journals that she would _devour_ for. Information as a whole is far too protected to be any use to the masses as well, and as a clanless, homeless three-year-old, there isn't a lot materials or products available to her without Mikoto's help. (Once, back then– way, way back then– information was utterly free and at the touch of a button. Now she has to personally research it.)

 _('The temperature average of Konoha is 20 degrees Celsius; climate is mostly temperate broadleaf and mixed forest with some degree of Mediterranean forest near the western border of Fire. The average literacy rate amongst adults is 68.9%—a fraction less than India. 1 ryo should approximately equal to 10 Japanese yen, and therefore worth 0.08USD. 100 yen is 0.80 USD, and so one USD is equal to 10 ryo. Konohagakure, and likely the rest of the Elemental nations, also appear to follow the 24 Sekki, as opposed to a Gregorian calendar. The months are named after what appears to be traditional Japanese months, like the Month of Affection (January), or the Month of Leaves (August). And significant dates land on the 24 Sekki too, for example, after the 'Coming of the New Year' is the 'Coming of Spring', landing on what appears to be the start of February. 'Rain Water' is mid February as well, followed by 'Awakening of Hibernated Insects' in March, and Vernal Equinox halfway through March, so on. All incredibly romantic and very Jurassic.')_

* * *

Change is gradual and slinks over her before Suiren can blink. It's more than halfway through the year and winter is upon them. She loses her baby fat rapidly through extraneous exercise and aerobics. The curve of her biceps begins to show and her still-very-short legs have significantly more pronounced muscle. Her face doesn't change much—cheeks are still baby-soft and rather pudgy, but Mikoto says she's got good bone structure. Like her mother. Suiren knows she is so much like Harry Potter this is almost an AU crossover shitfic. Haha.

* * *

Sometimes she has trouble sleeping at night.

It's getting less frequent though; less turning and tossing, eyes wide and awake and staring at the ceiling and thinking deeply about troubling things—things like what the future holds, _the timeline,_ what she knows and _what she wants to know_. She was like this before as well: over-thinking and over-complicating things, but doing so before had a lower likelihood of killing her. Now everything is different. So horribly and complacently different.

Itachi knows too, she thinks. He's only next-door and only has super shinobi hearing skills. Maybe she is disturbing his beauty sleep. Uh oh.

Suiren plays with her chakra late at night as well, sometimes, both out of sedative purposes and to practice her control over it. She has to be prepared. _A ninja must prepare before it is too late._ She's only a year older than them—the Rookie Nine. She must prepare before it is too late.

* * *

Just before the Winter Solstice, there is an incredible festival that's held in the village. It stretches on for days and days, right up to when the 'day becomes the shortest'. Merchants in vivid bright caravans set up camp on the outskirts of Konoha, eager to trade before winter really sets in, and all the shops on the main street bloom. It is also the time when snow starts to fall. _Taisetsu_ _Sekko_. The Snowfall Festival.

Birds that missed the annual migration storm bask in the glow of lanterns. Shopkeepers set out signs in the blue of early dawn. Suiren buys a grilled squid from a pop up stall and buries herself deeper in her over-sized duck down coat.

"Do you want one?" She grumbles to Sasuke who trails after her. Mikoto's gone off to argue viciously over a dozen eggs and Fugaku hardly ever makes a public appearance. ('If things are really that bad for the Uchiha clan, he should've invested in a PR,' Suiren considers for a moment.)

Sasuke nods furiously. She gives him a look.

"You won't like it."

He puffs his chest out indignantly and cries, "Will so!"

"How do you know? You've never had one."

His mouth falls open in a display of shock and _outrage._

"Eh? _Suiren-chan?"_

Said girl turns to answer, _knowing_ that voice is bitingly familiar. "Oh!" Her black eyes open wide. "Ojii-san!"

" _Wao!_ How long has it been since I've last seen you? You've grown so much Sui-chan!"

 _O-jii-san._ One of the many of her mother's friends on the main street. It might have been her father's store, but it was her mother who really knew the people of Konoha, and who brought in the business.

"It hasn't been quite the same without your pa's store. You ever thought of takin' over the family business, eh?" The gap tooth shines as the ojii-san grinned. After relieved from shinobi duties decades ago and missing one eye, the current storeowner of the hugely popular seafood market grew to be one of her mother's closest friends, and Suiren's always liked this oddity on the main street. "We all miss the competition, Sui-chan."

"Well I don't know," the girl begins truthfully. "I want to be a kunoichi."

He laughs.

Then realizes she's being honest.

"Ha! _Kunoichi_ huh? That's a tough life for us civilian folks, y'know?" But Suiren doesn't comment. Sasuke gives the ojii-san a snarky look before continuing to mindlessly steal bits of her ikayaki. Ojii-san sighs. "Listen, since it's the Obon or Evening of the Seventh or whatnot, why don't I treat ya-" Ojii-san notices Sasuke Uchiha, "and that brat next to you to some toshikoshi-udon? Nearly New Year an' all. Your ma had helped me out a lot when I first started—really knew her way around the business market, that one."

Suiren agrees, even though it's actually considered bad luck to eat toshikoshi noodles before the last day of the old year (since any long noodles symbolized ' _crossing over from one year to the next'_ ). She grabs Sasuke by his collar and takes him over to Ojii-san's store.

As Suiren-onee-san leads him through the automatic doors, the stench of fresh seafood and fish _overthrows_ Sasuke. His eyes water and his stomach begin to churn very, very violently—the ikayaki coming alive in his tummy. He tugs at Suiren-onee-san's sleeve but she doesn't react at all, and instead walks on forward in a trance. _Piles and piles_ of oysters, crabs, and zombified fish haunt him coldly. He's got this sneaky ninja feeling that their eyes are following him. ( _Their eyes are watching god_.)

Meanwhile, some part of Suiren is in awe ( _he's like Orochimaru but seafood king_ ) 'cause 'Ojii-san's store has _grown so much',_ but another part knows it's because what once was HYO'S GROCERY MART is now a bookstore.

"Wait are those the _blue lobsters_ from Water?" Her jaw slackens and she forgets everything. "Aren't they _almost extinct?_ "

"Yeah and that's why they aren't for sale. I'm tryin' 'ta start something here girl," Ojii-san gives her a knowing wink. "So imagine this: _a huge influx_ of the rare and _mythical_ blue lobster-dragons suddenly hits the market hard and fresh, and comes not from the far and wayward Land of the Waves, but from _Konohagakure itself._ There's no transit tax, no shipping or freight fees— _nothing!_ Prices will be _ludicrously_ high because that shit's the best, but it'll be in serious demand anyway, especially with the daimyos and whatnot. People won't be able to resist these beauties," he says the last line fondly, one hand over the edge of the aquarium glass. (And deep in the sandy waves lies several starkly indigo lobster-dragons in heat and rattling their whiskers. Most of the cause for endangerment comes from their wayward mating schedule: early in winter they lay their eggs, and it's far from spring when the fry emerge, hungry and cold and miserable. Many die, but alas, that is the fate for these mythical, dumb, blue lobster-dragons. True they are renowned for being blue, but mostly they're dumb and tasty seafood.)

Suiren has a sudden image of Breaking Bad and one very infamous Walter White.

" _And then_ I'll rename this place _Seafood King_ \- an' hire a bunch of youngsters while I relax in a nice cottage on the outskirts of the village in the woods somewhere- and by a lake! And go fishing the whole day and eat the food I catch myself! Ha ha ha," he chuckles to himself. Ojii-san stalks behind his freezer-section with all the dead and half-dying seafood and pulls up two bowls of udon with scallions. "Do you want some prawns in these? Fresh from Land of Hot Water?"

Weakly, and tormented by _more seafood,_ Sasuke tugs at Suiren's sleeve faster and attempts to swallow the dry retch floating up.

"Yeah- yes please," she answers distractedly and shoots Sasuke a look. "What's wrong?"

He swallows his saliva— _Mother always told him to act civil even when faced with near-certain death—_ "Onee-sanI feel _sick._ "

Two things happen at once.

Ojii-san drops the bowls of udon and dashes to the counter, an angry finger jabbing at the exit, " _NO CROSS-CONTAMINATION IN MY STORE—NOT ON MY WATCH!"_

Two: Sasuke vomits very, very violently. Inside the store. Down Suiren-onee-san's leggings.

She shuts her eyes pensively.

* * *

 **a/n:** ojii-san definitely has that bogan australian accent. sasuke has now discovered his least favourite thing in the universe. Suiren is not being called 'sister'; onee-san is also a title you give to anyone younger than 25, but older than you. also we have a slightly better and 10000% mentally healthier sui-chan, although not entirely for the right reasons. She's learnt (or rather re-learnt) to channel stress, aggression, anger and sadness into punching things and tiring herself out. well done fugaku you once-in-a-generation genius. well done. also take note of how he's not teaching this two/three year old kids anything to do with chakra yet. (itachi does though, at two and three, but that's itachi. he's terribly sad.) there's a lot I'm holding back for later chapters and _it's so super important,_ you guys are gonna lurve it. huehuehuheuhe.

And because a lot of my writing in this story benefits from withholding (also, suiren's only a kid, she's can't pierce together everything so you're aware _just_ yet, as kids aren't privy to everything in the world), it's up to you guys to really look underneath the underneath! like the implications of what ojii-san says about _'civilian' ninjas_ and his reaction to suiren wanting to be a ninja compared to how mikoto and fugaku aren't even questioning it! ha ha ha.

Maybe im spilling too much.

And for the curious folks: the sentence Suiren mutters in English is from _Autobiography of Red_ , a novel in verse by Anne Carson. So _bloody_ beautiful. I love her stuff. Also, I am an unauthorized but still very legal sentence stealer. I steal sentences. Hahahhaahhhahahaahhha.


	4. landscape with fruit rot and millipede

**a/n** : okay so I've been completely blown away by the sudden increase in favorites and followers? Thanks so much i cry- i'm just so overcome with emotions and-

EXAMS ARE OVER I'VE BEEN LIBERATED I feel like an independent sovereign I'M FREE

also THANK ENBI FOR READING OVER THIS CHAPTER PLS SEND HER PRAYERS OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY

* * *

 **Landscape with fruit rot and millipede**

All Fugaku Uchiha has ever known (and ever really needs to know) is that the Clan is _everything._ He has assassinated Very Important People with nothing more than a stray kunai, started levels of political tension thicker than all the sexual tension anyone's ever had, and could definitely strangle a militant with a flower stalk.

But still: _the Clan._

(The value of a group or organization over the value of an individual—collectivism is the most important aspect of shinobi life, and the first thing a shinobi ever learns.)

So when he marries Mikoto Uchiha ( _Susano'o-no-Mikoto_ , murderess, blurryface, shatterhand, _ghost_ —), it's more than expected that they would produce the perfect archetypes of paragon child _-_ heirs. Love is lost (except that it isn't) and the marriage ceremony is at the height of _stars_. And when Itachi emerges into the world, all aphotic and anti-mortal, Fugaku _knows_ , then and there _._

Having children changes some men—some shinobi—but Fugaku hasn't changed. Instead he's furthered by his cause because _this is the_ **Uchiha Clan** _._ And now he has a son. He has an heir. Witness him. _Witness the Clan._ (Witness Itachi Uchiha, first of his name; fire-born and a glance from god _._ If the Clan is fire breathed into men-like anti-mortals, then Itachi Uchiha _will be_ _fire_ and _heat_ and _the_ _sun is a gracious perennial._ )

A few years down the track, Sasuke comes along too. Cute. A surprise. 'Spitting image of Mikoto'. Fugaku holds Sasuke in his arms and almost drops him face first. Everyone at the time thought that was the end of it all: two kids, two boys, two heirs—a _clan_.

However, one twilight evening, Fugaku finds another child sitting in his seat at the dinner table.

He kicks her off and seats himself down all proper, and is halfway through his bowl of rice porridge before he gets a proper look at the brat.

Fugaku swallows. And looks again.

 _It's the grocer's kid._

Mikoto's chakra flares ever so slightly (a warning) _,_ but Fugaku only closes his eyes.

He stands up, wife sharing a hard little look with him, but the Great Uchiha Leader just breathes and places his bowl in the sink before retiring to their room.

* * *

" _You took in_ _ **Senka's daughter**_ _?"_

"— _practically family! And she's an_ _ **orphan**_ _now, you know how horrible things can get in the orphanage after disasters like this."_

" _This isn't a_ _disaster Mikoto, it's an attempt to frame the Clan."_

" _A rather effective attempt, wouldn't you agree?" Mikoto cut in again after seeing her husband's low rumble of annoyance,_ _"Taking in a civilian girl will look good for us, and Suiren Hyōzan's virtually blood. She'll be cardinal when people start to notice."_

" _Does Sandaime know of it?"_

" _No he doesn't, but the poor girl has no other guardianship apart from us, and she will be drafted into the orphanage if she has no other consenting guardians. I'm mentioned in Senka's will as well."_

" _I'm very surprised."_

 _There's a moment of silence before Mikoto elbows Fugaku in the ribs for that sarcastic comment. It took her ten years to realize her husband jokes, if only occasionally, and another five for her to tell the difference._

 _Fugaku fends off his wife's bony elbow and feeds a cracking smile into the conversation. (Some years later—after he graduates from the Academy—Itachi looks at his parents and wonders if love and fate could come to this world aligned.)_

" _She is going to have to train, just like the rest of the clan children."_

" _I am aware."_

" _It is demanding, and difficult."_

" _She'll be all right."_

And the rest is history, as we know it.

* * *

Except when it isn't.

"Hokage-sama, this is unacceptable _._ " Her husband's fist is clenching so brutally she fears it may be perceived as treason. Mikoto places a hand on Fugaku's shoulder. She looks to the Hokage, eyes bright and vivid.

"It's out of my control, Fugaku—"

" _You are the_ _ **Hokage**_ _,_ how can it possibly be out of your control? _"_ He brushes off her hand (her support) so, so terribly easily. The red in his eyes bleeds lividly. It scares Mikoto for a moment.

"This—" The Sandaime deflates with ache, "this is the general census of the population, Fugaku, I cannot do anything, _be anything_ without the support of the population. We have to restrict the activities of the Military Police Force."

"It's the scheming of that— _that vermin and snake_ , isn't it?" Fugaku snarls _._ "We are protecting the population! It is our duty and _it is the law_ , and you… and just want to take that away _?_ "

The teacups tremble in their trays.

"Oh gods, Fugaku, believe me, this is not what I want. However, there is little evidence pointing to Danzo and any believed accomplices' guilt—" the Sandaime raises a hand to stop Fugaku's catlike cutting comment, "You've launched several investigations into my advisor's activities— _I know._ "

"Then what," the Uchiha clan leader spits after a quiet moment, Sharingan unfurling and retreating, "Can we do to prove our innocence?"

Sandaime breathes. He pauses. Then: "Hyōzan… Suiren? Is that her name?"

Beside her husband, Mikoto's eyes grow wide. "Oh _no,_ you can't— _"_ But Fugaku grabs her arm. She feels hollow.

"I believe it may be best, even for a short period, to separate civilians from the clan."

The look Mikoto gives the Hokage isn't enough to describe her scathing— _bubbling—_ outrage. "The _clan_ is an integral part of the community! You can't possibly— _there are Uchiha businesses outside the clan._ This is, this is so foolish it's unlike you _,_ Hokage-sama."

"Is that truly wise, Hokage-sama?"

That wasn't a question, and the Sandaime and Fugaku both knew it. No other clan has ever been forced to seclude themselves, to segregate themselves from the rest of the village. The Akimichi don't even have a clan ground—restaurants and hospitality services affiliated with them sprawl right across the village, some even far as the opposite end. Even the secluded Nara mingle with everyone else _,_ with a section of their literacy collections public to the Akimichi, Yamanaka and other associated clans and shinobi.

"I believe Takano Senka and you were very close?" The Sandaime swallows and continues on, like the sea sloughing her torn hem over the sands.

Mikoto swallows a bitter-savoured word. "Yes. Yes we were. _She placed her daughter in my guardianship._ " Then she breathes, shatteringly, like some decaying sea creature, "The Kyuubi attack hurt us all, Hokage-sama. Please don't forget that."

"I haven't," Sarutobi Hiruzen quietly says, and his hands clasp together behind his desk. A prayer.

"We'll take our leave then."

Fugaku stands; Mikoto follows. There is no room for further argument with someone who wouldn't, _couldn't_ listen.

And they exit, just like that.

* * *

Mikoto gets out the coffee can, turns on the tap and starts to cry. (Why do things ever change?)

 _Mikoto-san_?

Huge wads of silence stuff the air between the girl and the woman. Suiren swallows bad ideas and the want to repeat her name again, but _oh_ the atmosphere is so _sick_ —Mikoto isn't supposed to… _Mikoto isn't supposed to_ _cry_ because she's _a kunoichi_ , but she's—

Sick lurch.

(It's been always bossyMikoto, sweet Mikoto with persimmons and dried peaches; Mikoto sitting in the shade, Mikoto correcting her kunai grip, Mikoto telling Sasuke off for being reckless, Mikoto gripping her leg and dabbing antiseptic over the deep red; Mikoto taking her to visit the bookstore, Mikoto appearing out of the blue when Suiren's arm are dead, legs sore and eyes heavy from training; Mikoto reading to her, Mikoto explaining weird terms and phrases, Mikoto helping her with her chakra, Mikoto at the dinner table, Mikoto with baby Sasuke, Mikoto with walking Sasuke, Mikoto with Itachi, Mikoto looking after Itachi when he's all but fucked up- _Mikoto loving Suiren,_ and Suiren loving Mikoto back.)

"Come here Sui-chan," the tears are gone as fast as they appeared. Suiren obliges. "Suiren," Mikoto kneels _,_ and whispers so quietly, so tenderly, she almost misses it. "I'm so, so _sorry._ "

Everything is motionless for a moment. _Uh oh._ Girl feels numb. She knows what is happening—she's _five_ and Itachi's graduated _two years ago._ She's about to join the Academy on the second of the fourth month at the beginning of spring _—_ in less than _three_ months' time, and Sasuke is _almost four_. (She is running out of time.)

Mikoto wipes away the hollowness and the rain from her coal-eyes. "You're getting your own place at last! And I'll have to show you where Teyaki-jii-san and Uruchi-baa-san's new store is going to be, but you're a smart girl, you know the way around the compound after all these years, don't you?"

Girl blinks, and blinks hard. "But my name's not on the housing list yet?"

"Well," Mikoto's mouth is dry. She doesn't know what to say to her _best friend's daughter_ with eyes like _bright longing_ and a _mouthful of teeth_. (She is such a fire-born ash-risen creature, how can anyone ever forget who she is?) "It's just been approved by the Hokage. Aren't you pleased, sunshine?" Her hand comes up and ruffles Suiren's sulky little mop of black hair.

The girl nods, and she nods eagerly. "Will you come and see me?"

"As often as I can."

Mikoto hugs her, and she thinks she is dreaming something terrible.

(Truthfully, Suiren had no idea how bad things were— _could be_ —until she moved out.)

* * *

Small boy, large city, large mission, larger world, and large universes within child-skin and child-bones, and Naruto is old where he shouldn't be, and so is Suiren.

 _Sweet baby Jesus, he is tiny._ She sneaks subtle glances at the boy gleaming in sunshine with skinny shoulders and fumbling hands, searching for his house key outside his door.

"Aw man!" Naruto bursts suddenly, voice ringing across to her apartment block further down the road. "I left my keys Ojii-san's place again!" He turns around with a bummed out frown and thunders down three flights of stairs as Suiren watches him run, t-shirt three sizes too big flapping and bare feet cold against the ground.

And at that moment, she freezes. At that moment, something hits her very fast and very hard: her existence matters _._ She _matters_. Oh god- she blinks again and again. She's not disappearing like some worn-out ghost; Suiren is an unlikely creature with a four-chambered heart and opposable thumbs and _dances and has dreams and jokes and laughs and is alive_. She has been fearfully and wonderfully made, and it is a very sad thing to be nothing.

A smile invades her expression, and she turns back to the unassuming plain white door looming over. The lock unclicks. She steps inside, shrugging off her heavy backpack, and sneezes.

The apartment is a plain one-bedroom kitchen and dining unit, with a narrow balcony lining the window of the bedroom. The bathroom and kitchen gleam, as though recently furbished (likely the courtesy of Mikoto), and the rooms contain minimal furniture required for minimal survival. There's a single bed with a new lumpy mattress and a wobbly bedside table in the bedroom; a fold-up wooden dining table that doubles as a desk with two steel chairs complete with armrests sitting in the dining room. (Everything smells like IKEA _._ ) Mikoto has promised to bring over all her remaining belongings too, mostly crispy clean plates and clothes, so Suiren thinks she'll be all right _._

The place is bright, despite being on the second story, but at least she won't be shedding blood and tears over _stairs_. The whole place is so choke-full of dust too, like it's never been inhabited since its construction. Suiren wanders from room to room, pulling up blinds and sliding around in her rabbit socks. She narrows her eyes when she gets to her new bed, and with a grunt, the girl _soars_ onto it, flopping about twice with a long, heavy sigh.

Every bone in her body groans and melts in the comfort that isn't a futon. Life is good, if only for a moment.

But then: _I'm joining the Academy in three months._

"Fuck," she rumbles with her head buried into the sheets. Somehow though, Suiren manages to find strength and pull herself up, whacking her body in function. She works at unpacking her backpack.

In an unceremonious corner of the dining area, the girl unloads a small pile of books, with the promise of starting the greatest collection of books _ever_. Her clothes go into the built-in wardrobe next, all folded up in neat little stacks. Suiren eyes a spot next to the window in the dining room that's _begging_ for a potted plant _._ (She dreams of her decaying succulents in another life.)

Once, she was allergic to ethanol and had to use ten times more expensive sanitizing products—hand wash, wipes, everything—since she worked at a hospital and all. _Now, everything is different._ She goes around with sanitizing wipes like tomorrow will never come. She chokes on more dust, but the stovetop, the sink and the stone kitchen counter now shine. She is aided with the help of a trusty stool.

The bathroom gets the same treatment too ( _especially the suspicious toilet seat_ ), and the bath-shower is submerged in water and sanitizer before being drained. The skin of her fingers is all gross and wrinkly by the time the sun's setting. They feel numb. ( _She is numb_.) All the glass and surfaces gleam in the poignant glow of the sunset, and the fraying blinds on the ceiling's high windows cast pretty shadows over the floorboards of her dining area. If she squints, Suiren could probably make out the Hokage Tower in the distance, with all the stone-carved faces of the Sandaime's predecessors.

She slumps down on the floor, drags over her backpack and pulls out a cup ramen. (She knows what she is doing, but the girl is tired and half-asleep and _starving_.)

There was a time once, in college, with some roommates and good vibes going, where they were arguing over dinner and feeling all rancid with the high of the finals finally coming down. Someone offers to call for pizza before they remember _oh fuck we're broke._ But then she unveils a pantry full of instant noodles in every flavour possible, she was honoured as a Real Hero. And that girl wasn't this _Suiren_ or _Hyōzan_ or a kid with chakra and dead parents. She was just herself _._ Bio-med student. Tough parents. Ran over a dog once. Hooked up with a vet once. Was a surgeon; accidentally killed a guy during open heart surgery and family hated her for a while. Wrote a lot and sang a lot and had a lot of plants. Life was hard but then it got better; home was _home_ and then it got hard.

However, things have changed. Suiren slurps down the rest of her noodles, alone and sweating, and sets it by the door, ready to be thrown out tomorrow morning. She really needs a few bins in this place, and a bookshelf. Five more potted plants also couldn't hurt. She resigns to counting her savings.

It takes her several hours of staring at an unfamiliar ceiling before the girl falls asleep. It's a starless, windless midnight, and the hottest night of the year looms over her. Girl thinks maybe Mikoto wouldn't miss a fan or two. She dreams of a gold light found in certain old paintings.

Suiren settles into Apartment Block No. 24, Unit 7, as easily as a cat stretching into new skin. Sometimes the sound of a small child's outbursts and antics wake her up early dawn, but she is far too used to living with children to be too upset.

(Occasionally, there's leftover fried rice with deceptive looking carrots and broccoli sitting in front of Naruto Uzumaki's front door that's gone the very next day. He isn't sure where it comes from or who sends it, only that it tastes fantastic when drowned in instant ramen.)

Three months pass slowly when Suiren has little to do but study and work towards a budget. However, her priorities are clear: the orphan's pension granted to her monthly is just enough to cover the bills and some of her grocery shopping. Seafood Ojii-san always gives her discounts though (despite the-accident-they-don't-talk-about), so she's never been really hungry. Mostly. Mikoto helps cover some things too, like appointments, medical check-ups and her enrolment into the Academy. Suiren may not be able to live with her mother's best friend anymore, but it certainly doesn't mean Mikoto won't help.

(There's also something she can't quite put a finger on it yet. Something about the way unfamiliar shopkeepers cast her wayward looks. The ones that have been around since the time of HYO'S GROCERY MART have never forgotten her, but _the strangers_ —they look at her like she is a carrion monster. And somewhere nauseously deep inside of her, Suiren feels unsettled. Her skin pricks cold and her heart droops heavy. It's disquieting: what are they thinking? What are they imagining? _Is this what Naruto feels?_ )

Necessities aside, Suiren exchanges the dull white walls for some happy green spots in her new home, achingly parting ways with a small sum of money. She also scores a wobbly, second-hand bookshelf in pretty good condition from the bookstore a few blocks away. However, without Fugaku's Almighty Library, self-study is slow at best. She doesn't really want to _intrude_ and ask him if she could have _access to his private study._ That would be just rude. And pretty inappropriate.

But in comparison, the Konoha Public Library has a pretty pathetic collection that barely covers its own hidden village, let alone wayward topics like seals, biomedicine or medical ninjutsu and international relations between certain countries of interest. If she loses a limb or two and can't make it as a ninja, Suiren will dedicate the rest of her life to restoring the honor of _public libraries._ Bookstores are way too mainstream in this place. Suiren doesn't really like bookstores much anymore.

So, for most of her education system-free days, she wallows in punching things in the Uchiha courtyards and writing a clusterfuck of notebooks about everything she remembers from the time of _before-before_. Stories mostly, lore and classics and songs too, but also some science facts like _the sun and the moon and Mars and Venus and there was once a planet named Pluto but then people decided planets must be of a certain size and thus Pluto was no longer a planet._ (Also: hydrogen was the first element created in darkness. Humans are made of raw stars. Vertigo on top of glass skyscrapers. Alfred Hitchcock. Newton's third law. Chinese expansionism. Tooth fairies. Wolf teeth. Gremlin. Doppelgangers. The smell of old books. Skydiving. Mountain climbing. First day of college; last day of college. Singing favourite songs off-key. Waking up with light spilling over the sheets. Noir films. First C on a test; first A. Favourite teacher. Favourite subject. Road trips. Holidays with family. Anniversaries. Picking berries until your fingers are stained dark. Not being afraid anymore. Hot air balloons. Dreaming.)

It's so different—living alone at last like she had done for so many years. Liberating almost. Suiren feels like the adult she really is, with all the spare time and responsibilities weighing heavy on her shoulders. It's the same feeling she gets when she's lying flat on her stomach on the cool floorboards of her big empty living room, and this one time where she went backpacking across Australia—a great, wide expanse with soaring, succinct blue. Alone. Plain and little. Mostly alone. She feels a little old, and very unlike the five-year-old she looks like. Older than twenty-something too, that's for sure. She thinks she might be a little ageless.

And three months pass all the same—that much will never change.

* * *

 **a/n** : ONCE AGAIN A HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE we have somehow achieved 163 FOLLOWERS AND 107 FAVOURITES. I hope everyone passes their exams if they have them!

So here we have Uchiha mafia-esque fam with a screwball amongst their midst. Also the genocide planning begins (there are always three steps to any mass-murder of a race/ethnicity within a community: 1. Propaganda/social disparity. 2. Segregation/isolation. 3. Murder.) And then we have fetus suiren pretending to not understand anything for the sake of keeping up her pretense, and Mikoto trying and failing to keep cool and explain what's happening to her best friend's five-year-old daughter. Headcanon that Mikoto is partial towards Suiren because Mikoto's grown up around brothers and sons and _having a daughter is so cute!_ (tbh I hate children tho)

ALSO SUIREN MEETS/SEES/STARES AT NARUTO! He's a very important person to her right now, because he's _proof of everything to come_. In fact, Suiren's building him up to be this amazing glorious bullet-proof human being when he's only a child and it's really not okay, so… let's just say that giving him food is not the last part you see of their relationship. Also fetus gains a house and it's not _too_ daunting because nothing is daunting until you try to find housing in the middle of Tokyo. honestly wtf are LDK apartments?

Last part is also very important; it's symbolic. Suiren's finally accepted the fact that she's been _reborn_ with past memories et all. The reason it takes her this long is because she's been allowed to pretend for most of her life that she's really a child with has nice parents and then has nice guardians and even gets two boys as brothers briefly, though if she never really gets close to either of them. (there's also a stint in the hospital where she drops everything _three year old_ in order to survive being alone, even for a little while. Friends, remember the caroline part? ye.) but now she has to remember _how_ to do dishes, _how to eat well_ , how to keep a house clean—all these little things from her past life. therefore Suiren's basically forced to remember and accept, and we no longer have memories in brackets. FINALLY.


	5. the bitter and the sweet

SEE BOTTOM FOR A VERY IMPORTANT A/N

* * *

 **houses october built**

* * *

"We're thirsty, thirsty. We're salt water and sweet. And the bitter and the sad mix with the dolce. It's as if we're rivers and oceans emptying and filling and swelling and drowning one another. It's frightening and wonderful all at once. And for once, I feel as if there's not enough of me, as if I'm too small to contain all the happiness inside me."

Sandra Cisneros, _Caramelo_

* * *

Year of the Snake, Month of Flowers (April), Sunday the 3rd (and I am five)

Remember in elementary when fractions seemed like a _freaking foreign language_ because what the fuck is ¼ plus ¼? And remember the first time you learnt multiplication and all you could see is the numbers swim up and down and _you thought that was hard_ when in high school you could barely _spell_ trigonometry or recite the quadratic formula.

And remember in high school when you dreamed about being twelve again, or even thirteen or sixteen and you think ' _ugh this is so bad'_ when in reality there is nothing worse than the 'now'. You want so badly to go back to grade three and be eight again, when the world was full of bright things and the lunar sway, and because you have all grown so very, very old.

Then for an infinitesimal moment, you swear you are no more than foul dust and air. You have no more importance than a small school of fish in the river, a few shrill birds in the air, rocks on the bottom of the sea. You're not important— _you don't matter_. You don't hold the meaning of the universe; the world doesn't stop spinning after death. You don't matter. You are so small.

[Illegible letters derivative of the Latin alphabet]

* * *

The civilian and shinobi education system both begin with the same topics: maths, geography, literature, history and so on, except the _shinobi system_ is not for the faint-hearted. It's swift and gentle desensitization that bleeds into rabbit-fast murder. In Biology you learn all the weaknesses of the human body; in Chemistry you learn which hormones fuck up your logical thinking and which compounds can send someone into trance-like sleep for months. Maths is all about trigonometry and circle theorems because you really need to consider the rebound angle of a stray kunai in the middle of a battlefield, and Physics answers the amount of friction created when a 'male shinobi, of 180cm and weighing 82kg, running at 53 m/s' effect is. Psychology is just preparation for genjutsu classes, while Literature teaches defense mechanisms _if and when_ a shinobi goes into withdrawal (cause reading books and examining other people's lives really helps). History is only lessons in social conditioning and propaganda, while taijutsu is just Physical Education with a twist: you learn how to kill.

These revelations disquiet her (because who said she couldn't understand politics at age five?). Suiren crosses her arms at the back of the classroom and broods. She thinks _how much longer her brittle bird bones can stand this_ and the answer is _she doesn't know_. Suiren doesn't know how much longer she can stand before the fall because there's _Lee_ who speaks in all exclamation marks, and Neji who is pale-fire monster. There's clan kids and civilians—soon to be ignited by the glorious vulgar struggle of _studying_ —talking of a trickster boy with golden hair and a trying smile because revenge is a grotesque monster; putrid breath, long claws and a dripping maw awaiting consumption.

She self-consciously rubs at a dreg of coffee stain on her shirt.

Then, like a flashbulb flickering on, Suiren's bathed in her surroundings, picking up things she hasn't noticed before. The fidgeting of legs, the scratch of pencils against wood. The smell of soap and a mother's detergent. The heat buzzing off the fluorescent light-bulbs. Her chest contracts and the breath strangles out of her. She nearly jolts out of her seat, heightened by an overwhelming urge to flee. Her wild eyes fly around the room—some children blink in surprise, while others blink away tears.

Yamaguchi Yusei, chuunin, 19, not good enough for jounin, enters the classroom. ( _He's not seriously dispelling killing intent, is he?_ ) The bitter chill fades as he speaks, "Morning kids." And the collision of reality and expectations taps at her temple. _Oh_.

Long bloodshot eyes peel the students' wary chorus of greetings apart. The boy next to her catches her attention when he doesn't join in; he's got books and pens and everything out, squinting at the board the moment their chunin instructor introduces himself. A fire emblem curling together at back of his shirt reads _Sarutobi._

Sensei quickly begins droning away, something about discipline and attitude and homework, among other things like extra-curricular classes. The boy's pale, numbered and moving hand entrance her. Children are so small.

"Would you like some paper?" he blinks stray brown hairs out of his blue, blue eyes.

She blinks a few times. "Aah… Oh! That's okay. Thanks though," Suiren smiles with a cringe. Staring is bad.

The boy shrugs. "What's your name?"

"Hyōzan Suiren. You?"

"I am Sarutobi Hidesato, but just call me Hidesato, if that's alright with you," Hidesato smiles in this passive-aggressive way. (She feels a reflexive urge to punch him in the face.)

She nods many times.

"Hyōzan-san, are you listening?"

"Su-sure I am!" Suiren whips around in her seat and brutally whacks her funny bone on the edge of her table.

"What did I just say?" Yamaguchi-sensei cocks an eyebrow expectantly. (A sly, November breath ghosts her arm.)

"Uh…" she swallows. _Fuck._ "That our first topic is the Social-Democratic Revolution of Land of Grass?"The tense moment breaks when the class erupts into giggles. Yamaguchi-sensei rolls his eyes with incredible skill.

"Nice try, Hyōzan. _We're_ doingsome multiplication and division questions with fractions. I'm not sure about you however," he earns some giggles while Suiren flushes brighter than the sun and poppies and chili peppers. "Alright, first row, come up and collect your bricks!"

("Now then, this lot of bricks multiplies this lot of bricks to become this lot of bricks.")

* * *

The more she loved a memory, the stronger and stranger it became.

" _There were these planets that circled the sun and next to Earth there was a beautiful, stormy, red planet named Mars roughly the same size as Earth—eight planets in total (used to be nine until scientists deemed the last one too small). There's eight in total because that's all we know."_

She is a fraction in this reality, a moiety missing it's whole, and at the center there is nothing but an empty maw that eats everything in sight because the only time she ever truly feels alive is when she counts each new bruise and cut and scrape of progress _._ (And once she could only speak the tongue of love-lost elegies.)

She's helium, a noble gas, destined to float above everything else with nothing but bits of fluff and dead things. And it's a lonely existence.

* * *

"You know… you look nothing like a Uchiha." Second week Wednesday sun blares a blazing red down at Hidesato's face.

"Really."

"Yeah your eyes are so much longer, your nose is too prominent and you have such _weird_ eyebrows. And besides, _I would know_ if you were Uchiha, Sui-chan."

"Uh huh."

"I mean, Uchihas' don't copy homework and tests like you do haha-" Hidesato trips flat on the ground with a groan, " _not again!_ " Suiren swiftly retracts her foot. He wipes a drop of red away from his chin. "They're all top of class as well, and, well, you know, you shouldn't be listening to them," he inclines his head towards the playground full of screaming children.

"Yeah but I'm top of the class too." She snidely defends herself and crosses her arms. Hidesato sends her a long aching look.

"Not in everything." That hits home.

"Ha! Well it's not like it's _possible_ for someone to be first in every subject, and like you said, since I'm clearly not Uchiha why would I need to be first in every-" because Fugaku-san says so, Mikoto-san says so—actually, everyone apart from Itachi thinks she should top of the class.

"Itachi was."

"But that's Itachi _,_ " Suiren rolls her eyes, exasperated.

Hidesato stares unblinkingly, like some sea creature. "Didn't you live with his family for some time?"

Her throat catches. _Yes_ , she whispers in her head. And perhaps if they had lived in a different world, Itachi and her could have been friends. Except this isn't a different world, and in this world they'll never get along: he's unreadable, she's a stranger—neither like the unknown and the unseen. And some things aren't meant to be questioned (most things, actually) but Suiren does it anyway and it's never landed her on his good side. He scares her a little too—Itachi's risen _so quickly_ through the ranks. He's chuunin _already_. She just didn't think it was possible for someone to be promoted so quickly. Quietly.

"Don't you think chuunin's just so far away?" A murmur scares them both, and she avoids his question altogether.

"No? We're going to become chuunin at one stage or another, and if I don't get promoted to chuunin, Dad says he will disown me."

She snorts but doesn't reply. Yamaguchi-sensei's recent words brush past her incandescently from a dark place—slimy seaweed reaching out to sun-tanned legs underwater: _'Your taijutsu isn't from the curriculum. It doesn't teach you how to evade and escape powerful opponents. Find time after classes to correct it._ _ **It's wrong**_ _.'_

Except it isn't wrong. _It_ _can't be wrong,_ Fugaku-san taught her all these katas and he's ingrained the forms into her bones like they're _carved lava-deep_ _inside of her_. She can't part from something like this-

"Hey. Hey Sui-chan," Hidesato waves his bento box tantalizingly under her nose and Suiren's long black eyes rove over to him, "would you like some?" She shoots him a look that says ' _are you joking_ ' and scoffs the whole thing down, rice balls, fish bones and all. Suiren's forgotten what Mom's food tastes like before Hidesato came along. (It tastes like home. It tastes like a big, blue planet at the perfect distance from the sun and other distant planets with molten rock at the center and vacuous space that sucks the breath from you. It tastes like home-made, home-cooked meals at night created by a species living in a brief geological period between ice ages, where giant asteroids have temporarily stopped smacking onto the surface. It tastes like 'real life'. Does such a thing exist?)

And in between mouthfuls, she glares a group of kids away when they get too close to Hidesato and her. It's a funny thing: 'us' and 'them', not one common letter. (And sometimes, Hidesato thinks, Suiren's eyes remind him of writhing black beetles under the sun, buzzing and humming and scrambling little sharp legs all over each other's iridescent backs in murderous attempts to take off, only they can't because each black thing is locked in a bestial, ravenous assault with one another.)

"What?" She asks strangely when she notices him staring.

"They are not so bad, you know. I've know some of them since I was two."

' _Why do you hang out with me then?'_ dances on her tongue. ' _I'm a pseudo-Uchiha-chan: treacherous, infernal, starving and terrible. Everyone says so. Even the Uchihas—_ especially _the Uchihas.'_

"Wait! Oh gods, you might actually be an Uchiha because your clothes are all black! Haha! Get it-"

She gives him another bruise on his shin and that effectively shuts him up. _So what_ if she's dressed for a funeral seven days a week, maybe she's _preparing for one._ (Suiren's sure by now that he could definitely file assault and emotional damage charges for all the injuries she's inevitably planted, but it's not like they _have any other friends_.)

They are only five year olds and already people are the same wherever you go.

* * *

Taijutsu sparring class always lands on the gloomiest of Thursday afternoons. Sometimes the sun looms as glaringly bright as Neji's unblinking pallid eyes—most times, actually. Suiren knows some non-clan kids like to use the sun's glare as a distraction on these cloudless days from the amount of complaints Hidesato shoves down her ear, although he really shouldn't be complaining because at least he _wins_ some. Neji doesn't even let her have one win out of pity. He's a _pitiless_ _monster_. Fucking savage. (Neji's actually meant to be her "rotational" sparring partner but somehow it's always Suiren "not-Uchiha" Hyōzan that's partner-less and ends up dumped with him. Ugh.)

Sparring usually starts with Neji sliding into his usual Hyuuga stance like a well-oiled machine too, as he prepares to kick her out of this century. Also usually, Suiren's first instinct is to dive for the side where she can spot a rare opening near his legs so there's an attack entry she can go for with a sweep because she's _really fast_ and that means she can _hurt-_

But almost always, she reels back and drops into something heavy and defensive. Then Neji sneers, but that she has always ignored.

Out of the blue, the first strike with his elbow comes flashing towards her face and Suiren barely manages to block with her arm. The particular katas they're learning maximizes her vision but limits her mobility (a real shame) and Neji's close now—awfully close. At least he has the freedom of using both the Hyuuga style and the Academy style.

His knee kicks up, targeting her liver, but Suiren sees and grabs it. With a grunt, she shoves him away using his momentum.

Neji twirls around, sinking lower towards the ground.

( _"Power comes from your stance, your legs. Watch the difference between a punch from a low stance and one from a high stance-"_ )

That's all the warning Suiren gets before a rock hard _snap_ to her face sends her flying.

This how it ends too, usually. Except today, some scattered individuals crowd around their pit. The class one year above theirs' instructor went on toilet break and Yamaguchi-sensei doesn't give a shit about anything apart from their behaviour in class. (Yamaguchi-sensei kind of sucks.)

Suiren manages to stagger up, cradling her nose with a pitiful, mournful stare, some feet away from a watchful Neji. The blood drips until it stains her plain t-shirt a vermillion red. Someone gasps horribly. (What? Can't handle a bit of blood? _She's seen_ _all_ of someone's large intestines hanging out once.)

Then-

Someone mutters: _"Well what did you expect from a clan and civvie fight?"_

Girl stops.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Suiren whirls around with snarl, teeth bared. The older girl is taken back by the slightly confrontational tone.

"Well this-this is meant to be expected, y'know. A 'civilian shinobi' can't ever… compare to a clan shinobi."

Suiren looks at her like there are two heads. "What, so you just _automatically_ _know_ the outcome of a battle based on what clan they are or a lack of clan?" Many of the older children mutter but she can hear it all. "Oh- are you _fucking with me_? That can't be right-"

"What's _not right_ is how one clan is able to control monsters."

The insides of her intestines feel sick. Suiren's dark eyes scan the crowd for the owner of that comment but she finds none. Coward. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yeah and you would know," a dark-skinned boy with droopy bright eyes eat at her coldly.

Her mouth drops open. "Okay so here's a thing: _you're a fucking coward_. Your birth certificate is an _apology letter_ from the condom factory and _fuck the 18 generations of your ancestors_. So you better come on the fuck out you second-hand reject-"

She gets a blow to her face that sends her sprawling into the dirt.

Shaking her head, Suiren repeats dazedly, "well hey there." Another fist comes smashing red but this time she dodges with a roll across the dirt. Good thing laundry day is tomorrow. "Fuck your mother, fuck your dog, _fuck_ _you_." The older boy may be better at everything but she is small and quick and mighty and-

He snarls and rushes at her with lava-ferocity, lifting her by the collar. " _Say that again,_ " the boy hisses with burning fire eyes. (The fear garden invites her in.)

"What? Fuck you?" He delivers a throbbing fist into her solar plexus that knocks the breath out of her lungs. Oh god, she _can't breathe—_ "I think you need some new hair gel because that shit's not staying _umph_ -" Another iron-cold fist and Suiren is sent crumpling across the pit.

"And you need a new clan, _Uchiha-chan._ " The older boy wipes his hands on his shirt and sends her an ugly glare.

Her eyes snap to him.

Everything crammed up erupts.

"Not Uchiha," the nails on her clenching fists dig into her palms _so hard_ they leave red little crescent moons. Her body feels like it can barely contain her organs but Suiren still pushes herself up. She dusts her pants; breath coming out short, sharp and shallow. "I'm _not_ aUchiha how many times _do I have to say this shit_?"

Girl takes a moment to compose herself. Then she smiles suddenly.

Eyeteeth.

Suiren settles easily into a familiar stance of an old friend not seen in a long, long time and points it towards a disapproving enemy. Then there is this disturbing quiet moment where her whole face and dark little eyes just closed off and Boy's heart stills.

Fugaku-san once said that every clan's taijutsu is more than just a style—it's a _lifestyle_ , a philosophy, a way of identifying _clan_ and _blood_ and _family_ , and those that are not.

Fugaku-san once said that she could be the blood of the first sons, the sun's dizzying height of heaven, fire spun red and the gold in trees and heaven touched and fire-born and ash-risen and a fucking phoenix if she just tried. (Those weren't his exact words.) _It could be intoxicating,_ the hard burning in his eyes told her. _Power intoxicates._

"I am Hyōzan Suiren," Girl rumbles and lies and stares dead at Boy, "and I hold the wolf by the ears."

She disappears.

He's barely able to detect the shamelessly malevolent intent at the back of his neck but before he's able to react, the ground hits him. A murderous hand grabs his collar and suddenly he's face to face with her, thunder-struck and unsettled. From the bridge of her nose, to the volcanic black of her eyes, _he can taste her ache._ She looks and breathes like she wants to _tear him from limb to limb_ , like there's nothing holding her back anymore.

A fist rears back but instinctively, drowning in experience and training, he lashes out with his leg, catching her shoulder and kicking her away. An agonizing burn blossoms over her clavicle.

Suiren flips back around with ferocity—hissing and spitting, relentless two-tailed cat. Dumbfounded, he swiftly skips back to reassess the sudden change in behaviour, except the more he runs, the faster she creeps, like some _gaping unlit monster in the dark._ It's actually horrifying, and he can see her sparring partner moving _the hell away_ to give her space because there is something clearly not right here.

Then she's quaking, like an unholy god. She's not letting him rest, oh- and more importantly the air around him shrinks thin all of a sudden and it feels like his throat's constricting except he's not asthmatic, _a shinobi is not asthmatic—_

Yamaguchi-sensei shunshins in front of him. The boy doesn't see his own sensei reduce her to shreds of a girl.

"Hyōzan-san, you're leaking chakra everywhere. You might want to stop before you die of overuse."

And something flips in Suiren's black eyes.

"Take her to the hospital, she's going to need it," his sensei mutters pointedly to Yamaguchi-sensei after scanning a glowing green hand over her. He frowns at a blank-eyed girl.

"Sarutobi!" Hidesato rushes to Yamaguchi-sensei's side at once from the crowd. "Accompany your overdramatic friend to the hospital."

It's odd that both sensei are acting like everything's 'okay' because the way she jabs two fingers at her dimly mirthful eyes and then at him _can't be okay_ , the boy thinks. It can't be ' _okay_ ' because the strangest thing is the way she acts like she hasn't nearly suffocated two entire classes dead with _chakra_. Boy touches his black and purple neck and stares at the civilian born students gasping for air. Honestly though, he should've seen it coming: it's an Uchiha raised kid—what should you expect but genius and bloodthirst?

* * *

 _Minor clavicle fracture_ , _broken ribs, fractured sternum and a dislocated shoulder,_ Nurse-san tells her, _nothing too serious._ Suiren isn't allowed to participate in taijutsu practice for a week, just to give the newly grown clavicle and ribs time to harden. She's to report back two weeks later though, for an appointment with a pediatric specialist and a psychiatrist, which isn't terribly surprising considering what she's done. Hidesato berates her the whole way home. (" _Could've died_ , _chakra depleted_ , _nearly killed 26 people and that's not counting sensei._ ")

Suiren thinks death can't be all that bad. She's died once before and it wasn't that bad. Nothing is _that_ _bad_. Her ribcage begins to hurt again, maybe because she has broken twenty brittle birds bones there.

Fugaku-san has a hard jawline and harder eyes. Any thought of indecision is done away by an expectedly firm close of his lower lip. He's man of tall stature with the rigid carriage of a military general, but if Suiren thought Fugaku-san is pushy and inflexible, then Mikoto-san is the biggest and baddest demon alive in the Uchiha household.

"I heard you got into a fight at school today." Mikoto deftly cuts apple slices into bunnies. Suiren shrugs. Mikoto smiles poignantly, "What was it about?"

"Bad 'tuff."

"You were sent to hospital."

"The bills 're paid."

She sets down the fruit knife. "That's not what I'm talking about, Suiren. You were _sent_ to the hospital. _I heard_ _26 children were_ _almost sent_ _too_."

"'as an accident," Suiren crudely mumbles. Missing an incisor sucks.

Mikoto doesn't say anything for a while but when she does: "I hope that's the case. I really hope so."

Suiren's jaw drops. "Of _course_ it 'as an accident. Did y'think I did 'hat _on purpose_?"

"Do you regret it?"

"Ye'! Well _no_ , no' really cause it's compliffcated-"

" _Do you regret what you almost did?_ "

Suiren stares at Mikoto like she's never seen this woman before. " _Shinobi kill ev'ryday_!"

"Did you get a brief? Were you _paid_? Was it a mission? _Did it have an objective?_ Suiren, what are the basic foundations of shinobi arts?"

Silence stuffs the space between them.

"That's what I thought," Mikoto narrows her eyes. "What separates _us_ and murderers is that _we_ _have an aim every time_. Whether it's moving someone to safety, helping a country out of a revolution, or even because someone requires assistance with eradicating their enemies— _we have an objective._ Missing-nin don't, murderers and killers don't. We have an _aim_ and that's what makes us different from senseless killers."

Funny how everywhere she went, people are all the same, Suiren thinks.

"Okay. I'm _sorry_ 'hen." She lets light reach the depths of her dark, dark eyes.

"That's my girl," Mikoto smiles golden and leans over to embrace.

* * *

"And even if the world would end tomorrow; even if galaxies started imploding and universe tore apart—I will _never_ forget who I am. I will never _forget anything._ "

* * *

They say the Uzumaki children are mischievous and that the Uzumakis like the taste of danger. They say that they are tricky too, and that the Uzumaki elders were wise and used to speak in three verse lines, mismatched jargon and cuneiform glyphs.

They also say that Naruto Uzumaki is a _demon_ , and all those stillborns and heart attacks found in children hours in the aftermath are _Naruto's fault._ They blame Naruto for the brief famine, the slight drop in trade, and the way the skies stayed overcast and moody for _months_ with no rain. Then there's " _demon child_ " and " _Hokage-killer_ " and " _nine-tailed fox_ "—

But in the endless valley of the _n_ , in the sloppy curve of the _a_ , is _love_ three feet crippled and a thing half asleep. The _r_ is twice shot with dopey hangings, and the _u_ ("you, you, _always you_ ") flits sharp and jagged, leaning away because tomorrow the world ends (" _You again?"_ ). Except the _t_ makes up for _everything_ because it is a creature mid-pirouetting, artfully flexed hand ready to do, _to be free_. Oh and the _o_ : (oh _oh,_ deep breath and)— _o_ breathes for tomorrow. _Oh._

 _N-a-r-u-t-o._

Naruto _:_ sunshine, starlight and flame : son of man, perched on the chair in his office with jittering wild gestures. Naruto: daisy-print t-shirt three sizes too big, washed and washed and washed all over again. Naruto: sacrificial lamb for one village's survival and gleaming future.

"-nd then I made the buckets 'splode and the laundry lady blew up at me like a-a fat pig!" Naruto jumps to his feet with false bravado, and nearly knocks a leafy pot off the desk. He flinches and pushes the plant further from the edge. Good plant.

A soft smile washes over the Sandaime's face. He exhales from his pipe—a slow-winding smoke-dragon twisting its way out. "That's wonderful, Naruto but you'll still have to apologize to the Mitorashi-san."

Naruto's lips pucker out in a sorry shade of pink. "But she's _horrible_ \- gave me twenty ryo less once and _said I lied_. Didn't lie. I _never_ lie." Just because kanji looks like funny squiggles doesn't mean he can't count.

"Naruto…" Sandaime sighs, "sometimes we have to say things we don't want to say, but they have to said-"

" _WELL_ when I become the _Hokage_ I won' have to do that because everybody will respect for _who_ _I am_ – _and_ I won' have to go around saying things I don't mean _._ "

Sandaime sighs. ANBU Duck adds another tally to his counting in the shadow. "Then just this once, until you take over for me?"

Minato's dreamy thoughtful gaze crosses over. "Okay! But only if you treat me to Ichiraku's!"

Sandaime nods a smile. "Very well, I'm sure Bito-san can accompany you sometime. Now tell me what do you think of the new apartment?"

"Umm s'okay," Naruto mumbles. Then brightens. "The very nice nee-san brings me food! Uhh… the land-lady forgets to turn on the heating sum'times… but I'm gunna be a _ninja_ so I can light m'own heater!"

 _The 'very nice nee-san' across the road?_ He files the mention away for investigation because, more pressingly, the _landlord doesn't turn on the heating in the_ _middle of winter?_ The last apartment mysteriously 'lost the key' to Naruto's apartment several nights in a row, and the one before that 'refused tenants under the age of twelve'. This is… _this is treason—_

"Anything else, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto shrugs with a pouty mouth. "Nah."

Sandaime nods, smiles and signals ANBU Duck. ANBU Duck disappears. "Well it's rather dark now so Bito-san will escort you home. She's in the waiting room."

A grin stretches wide and whole over Naruto's face. "Thanks jii-san! Don't forget about Ichiraku's though!"

Sarutobi smiles wearily, "Don't worry, I won't."

* * *

" _I come here to visit_ _an old friend_ and you're just shoving all these bloody cases at me?" A delicate teacup does a flippy sort of thing and smacks onto the hospital floor. Shizune holds back a snort at the badly placed pun.

"A-Ah well… it's just that there's an Academy girl with a fractured sternum and possible heart damage (probably head damage too), facing potential charges for attempted manslaughter due to chakra malfunction."

"…Chakra malfunction, huh? That doesn't happen every day."

"No it doesn't, Tsunade-sama."

"Where are her charts?" The nurse hands it over without reluctance. Palming through the clipboard, Tsunade raises an unimpressed eyebrow. "You diagnosed it as a _minor hormonal imbalance_ and requested a _transfer_ to the _psych ward_? What are you, twelve? Show some creativity for fuck's sake." Shizune coughs besides her as a warning, side-eyeing the floor. "It could be abnormal chakra gate functions, infected pressure points, Trinucleotide-repeat mutations… wait a minute, what's wrong with her charts?"

The nurse clears her throat. "That's, well, what we've been trying to figure out. All the stats are normal, chakra's been tested for yin-yang balance, we've run several tests and witnesses on the incident but nothing's come up. Right now our only option _is_ psych evaluation." It takes a certain kind of guts to defend your territory and opinions around _Tsunade Senju_ , and for that, Nurse-san gets a new appraisal from this amazing medical legend.

"So the kid's basically a medical mystery."

"Well- that would be correct, I suppose."

Tsunade whirls around to Shizune with a savage grin. The sinister glint in her amber eyes sends alarm bells ringing at the back of her head. "Get my bag _darl!_ " Tsunade-sama does a funny little dance (really, butt wriggle) and Nurse-san's eyeballs grow so big they swallow her whole face up.

"Oh that's right—where's this," She rapidly fingers through the patient's chart, "Hyōzan Sui… Sui kid's room?"

"This way, Tsunade-sama," the nurse dips her head before trotting off. Tsunade giggles wildly as she follows, before abruptly composing herself. Apparently storming down the hospital corridor is enough incentive for some to throw themselves against the wall to get out of her way. She has a good cackle to herself at their dumbfounded expressions. ( _Okay_ , so she actively avoids 'Sannin duties', spits on the Hat regularly, gambles her fame and fortune and life away and is on the run from creditors half the time, but what of it? It's not like she hasn't been in the village for… ten years? Ha-haha.)

As soon as the door swings open, the Academy girl stupid enough to get caught for murder jerks alive from her seat on the hospital bed. The boy next to her gawks open mouthed, flabbergasted. Tsunade gives her new patient a dismissive once over with hooded eyes. Nondescript black eyes and black hair could be anyone in Konoha but the girl's such a skinny little thing in those horrendously black A-line pants and slip-like t-shirt dropping off one shoulder, paints a rather unconventional image. The expanse of pale, freckled skin stretching taut over a bony clavicle and a bonier sternum with savage bruises blooming over the skin confirms what Tsunade already knows.

"Sit up straight kid," the girl obeys wordlessly. "How old are you this year?"

"Five," she sneaks a reassuring look to the boy at her side.

Tsunade raises her eyebrows. She brushes a glowing hand analytically over her. "Hyuugas are mean little monsters, aren't they?" The cracked sternum was not a clean break by any means, pattern typical of the Gentle Fist technique, although whoever looked after her did some careful work. The additional breaks in her ribs are healing nicely as well. "Breathe in," she orders, planting a snow-cold stethoscope over her chest, spreading goosebumps everywhere. "Where are your parents?"

The boy looks like he's just been kicked.

"Dead," Girl answers unflinchingly.

 _Oh- okay. Damn._ "And your guardians?"

Tsunade could almost see the little dim gears start to click and clack in her eyes. She takes a moment to collect her thoughts before: "Gone."

"So you live by yourself," Tsunade reaches for the girl's charts once more.

"Yes." The hardened monotony in her voice confirms her suspicions.

"You do your own laundry, make your own meals, clean your own home-"

"Clearly."

Tsunade blinks. She appraises the girl's friend. He withers. "Well you're very independent, which is a good thing of course. A good thing to be self-reliant."

Suiren shrugs. "It grows on you."

She clears her throat, "In any case, I'm going to go ahead and book you in for a quick medical ninjutsu surgery in a few hours for that sternum, and since you have no parental guardians-" Tsunade stops at a certain page in the charts. "You're not residing with the Uchiha clan?"

Hidesato tastes the air and it is full of warm-bodied anguish.

"No." That is the only answer she gives.

The length of time Tsunade didn't speak for is more than enough for Suiren to understand the woman didn't believe her for one moment. "Alright. I have a few pages you need to fill out for the procedure. You are five, correct?"

"Yes."

"Well that means you won't need village approval, which simplifies things. I'll book you in for some time around 2PM, is that alright?"

"Sure," and those long ebony eyes hooks into Tsunade. Hate looks like everybody else until it smiles. The revered sannin stares back with honey-lemon eyes, golden like the sun. Golden, like Naruto.

"Good luck kid," and it means more than Suiren realizes. They leave. Hidesato turns to stare at Suiren for the first time in a long time. Her long, ebony eyes hook into him.

"You okay?"

"Fine."

* * *

"So what's wrong with her?" Shizune cracks at last, having kept quiet to herself for the past six hours after the surgery.

"What's wrong with who?" Tsunade mumbles half-heartedly, gazing at a pretty boy across the bar.

Shizune coughs. "The patient, the one with the fractured sternum, living alone, five years old, potentially charged with manslaughter…?"

"Oh..."

Shizune gives her beloved mentor a look. "You spent two hours acquainting yourself with the Tsunade-diagnosed 'medical mystery chakra' and that's all you have to say?"

Tsunade blinks, suddenly awake again. "Ah! The Academy girl!" She swallows, squinting at her glass of liquor. "There's nothing interesting about it," she takes a gulp before scoffing disinterestedly. "Girl just needs some serious love and affection. Maybe even retail therapy. Wait…" Tsunade pauses as realizes that's her coping mechanism and it does not work well. At all.

Bewildered, Shizune shakes her head. "What are you saying?"

Tsunade rolls her eyes. "I'm _saying_ this kid isn't some super snowflake or anything remotely cool, she's just got incredibly mature chakra and a lot of fucked up shit. Well, you would be too if your parents were crushed headless and then your only remaining guardians get locked in an internal political struggle."

Shizune blinks. "Manslaughter charges it is?"

"What?" She twitches, "oh no, _no_. As if Sensei would let anything Uchiha-related go to council at times like this. Girl's gonna get off scot free with no more problems than she already has for her bad luck in getting guardianship from the Uchihas. Probably gonna end up as another ANBU junkie, hahaha."

 _Just like your teammate_ , Shizune chews the inside of cheek.

"It's a dog-eat-dog world," Tsunade swallows the rest of her liquor before casting a coy glance at the pretty boy, unaware of the glum prophecy. Pretty boy sends her a strange look and she picks up something like _'dude there's an old woman staring at me'_ from lip-reading. Her glass crashes from her hands. Shizune prays to the gods and retires for the night.

* * *

 **A/N** : Okay so it went something like this: finals, driver's license, christmas holiday back to mi hometown in China, MAJOR PROCASTINATION IN JANUARY HOLIDAYS, junior/year 11 year started, MANY HOMEWORK, mi birthday in February and then a gatho 3 months later lol MID TERM EXAMS and now we are here (WITH POKEMON GO). Haha.

I'm going to take this moment to broadcast that **I have made a tumblr** ( . com) so you can direct message me any questions regarding this story immediately, rather than waiting for the next update.

 **HoldTightAndPretendItIsAPlan** : bruh no worries there. Although the information you have isn't exactly accurate—as a cardiothoracic (ft. vascular system) surgeon, you would've gone through like 15 years of med school and trust me, in those 15 years you would've been learning a whole lot more than just the human heart or the number of bones ahah. The other thing is, in case my interpretation of reincarnation is not clear, Suiren has very little memory of anything until she was 3. Children's brains are incapable of containing huge amounts of data (some fics even show memories of being _inside the womb_ , which, outside of fiction laws, is impossible) and it's only 2-3 years later have her memories started to _trickle_ in. So it's like she's been studying super hard for an exam and now it's the holidays and she remembers nothing hahah. Thanks so much though!

 **SUPER THANKS TO OUR LORD OF THE LIGHT ENBI SOZ I COULDN'T WAIT**

 **Tinley** : So I read your review, along with refresher course of an amateur's guide to lawsuits- I'M JOKING I'M JOKING. But in my defense, I'd like to challenge your views (which are totally acceptable and cool with me btw). I've been told I like to argue lmaoo.

"I can't get into feeling for the main character… can't emotionally connect with the characters… congrats crazy"—I'm going to sidestep the political bomb you've dropped through the use of 'crazy' as a really inappropriate slur because you've pretty much answered your own question. You can't connect with my characters… lacking empathy or the ability to sympathize with the troubles of people regardless of the deliverance is a common trait in cluster B personality disorders. What did you say again, 'congrats crazy'?

"Writing style depressing… you over describe everything… similes are creepy" yeah fair enough, I'm aware people have drastically different styles of writing and clearly it's not your thing. So I'm going to go ahead and recommend you watch re-runs of Pokémon (omf the tv show was my childhood! hmu if you get into it); their language is about as basic as you can get haha. 100% guarantee you'll connect with them. (I cried in the Tyranitar episode.)

"Just to let you know, there is no reason to read something when you can't emotionally connect with the characters so when a writter intentionally creates that kind of story I just think they must be crazy." I stand by what I said in the first point. _You_ can't connect with my characters, possibly bc of _your_ _tastes_ in writing. The only problem is, there's been nothing in your review that could've possibly helped us communicate, or helped me improve. I'd like to remind you ad hominem reviews are bullshit and there's no place for them outside of petty internet squabbles and Australia's politics. hmu if you want to reword yo review tho, even if it's been like half a year haha.

ONCE AGAIN THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR BEING PATIENT I AM SO SORRY IT'S BEEN LIKE 20 YEARS

\- Lastly, sure there may be an impression that I am 'over-describing' certain parts. But if you're really interested, it would be super cool and enlightening if you went back to chapter 1 and re-read. I know you'll pick up a shit-ton of foreshadowing that either has happened, or well happened. Example: her chakra nature, Kyuubi attack, her old life, father's background, ROOT, the many cat refs, Coraline dream as a metaphor for her past life, Konoha dream as her reality, the strange library, medical metaphors, the contrast between Suiren's answer of _the social-democratic revolution of the land of grass_ , and Yamaguchi-sensei lesson plan: multiplication with fake lego, the reason for Fugaku/Mikoto's kindness and so on. I think that's most of it.

HMU IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS I LOVE YOU ALL.


	6. the thing around your neck

**notes** : wassa schedule lol

 **summary** : suiren gets ass whooped by senpai for being rude but only because of the ever looming uchiha-village divide. Mostly spurred by danzo. She also accidently almost kills 26 children with killing intent but narrowly escapes punishment due to a mix of hokage influence and Tsunade dismissing her psych-eval (Tsunade recognises she's a lil fucked up – lost everything and all).

* * *

 **the thing around your neck. it's squeezing tight.**

* * *

Days at school passes irregularly after the incident. Well, Sensei keeps a slightly closer eye on her during taijutsu classes, but he stops commenting on Suiren's Uchiha-style katas mixing in with the Academy style. Maybe it's the political power struggle swallowing Konoha up into its endless mouth, maybe he's given up on her, or maybe Sensei just a shitty apathetic teacher. Either way, his perpetual frown tells her, 'Yamaguchi-sensei has bigger problems to worry about'.

Her classmates are the children of a brutal military dictatorship, but everyday life for them and the town people carry on as usual. (Except here is the thing about military dictatorships: it's _never_ stable.) Sometimes the civilian kids stare at her for a moment too long. Suiren knows this isn't out of curiosity of the unknown—it's fear. There's an ugly scribble on the bottom of one of the cubicle doors in the girl's bathroom. You wouldn't notice it, unless you've got the height of a six-year-old.

But on the other hand, the clan kids seem to have accepted Suiren as one of their own.

"Yeah, you're cool now," one of the Inuzuka boys gruffly nods when Suiren gives him a dubious once over at the suggestion of being partners for a history project. Suiren supposes she shouldn't really care because it's _so_ immature and shallow—the only things she should care about are maintaining her ever declining finances, writing reminders for the supermarket sales and how she's going to afford that super wow _Famous Water Country_ _Assassinations_ book Hidesato introduced her to— but some superficial part of Suiren likes it. She _likes_ this feeling: acceptance. It's strange, an adult in a kid's body should be above these childish infatuations and group mentalities, but she isn't.

And Hidesato notices everything.

* * *

The months spin faster and faster through the remainder of the year. Suiren passes the end of year exam on shinobi theory, mathematics, science, history and literature with praiseworthy marks. She sits at dinner with Fugaku, Mikoto, Itachi and Sasuke on New Year's Eve and Fugaku announces for Itachi that he is going to join ANBU. Mikoto breaks into a shining smile. Sasuke gazes at Itachi adoringly. Suiren chokes on her rice. And then Mikoto smooths Sasuke's hair and informs Suiren that Sasuke is going to join the Academy this year. And Suiren feels like she might be drowning.

Everyone is moving up through the ages with Suiren as they should be, but she feels- _knows_ this is _too sudden_ , like there's been some horrible mistake and time needsto stop so she can catch her breath.

But time doesn't stop. The months spin faster and faster.

* * *

Sasuke manages to make a real name for himself in the schoolyard on the first day of grade one. Suiren almost can't believe the group of kids swarming around him with the grace of young girls. It's the end of the school and everyone's ready to go home—everyone, but that familiar little blond boy staring at Sasuke and the group of kids, with hair like sunshine and eyes like stars blinking vividly against the darkness. Her infamous neighbour. Naruto - planting water balloons over doorways and flipping _open_ signs of shops to _closed_ \- Uzumaki. The one with ANBU surveillance 24/7. The loneliest boy on the planet. _Except for Sasuke_ , Suiren remembers, then frowns. No not Sasuke, because Sasuke has a wholesome, adoring family. Sasuke isn't lonely—Sasuke is all bright smiles and soft-spoken, stranger-shy mumbles, waiting to set people's hearts alight.

"Wow your relative is very popular," Hidesato stops by on his way out of school.

"He's not my relative," she directs a glare at him. Hidesato just grins.

"Are you leaving?"

"I'm walking him home." The Uchiha compound lies on the outskirts of the village, but this is something important to her. Hidesato nods and waves goodbye as he trots off. Ah there's someone walking in the opposite direction of Hidesato, towards her. _It's Itachi_ , Suiren blinks with a jolt, and smiles a tiny little thing. She hasn't seen him for months.

"You're waiting for Sasuke?" Itachi asks, and Suiren notices how much taller than her he's grown, how much _older_.

"Yep. How's ANBU going?"

"Fine," Itachi replies, always a taciturn. He looks at Suiren with red-tinged eyes, face weary from the ages of time, blood, murder, poison and adolescence too young too soon. Growing up does that to people—blowing a layer of dust over the surface and transforming ordinary kids into strangers. The Sharingan does the same thing too. "Have you been taking Sasuke home?"

"I sure have-"

" _Nii-san!_ " They both turn to see Sasuke dashing towards them. He bursts face first into Itachi's embrace. Suiren feels something inside of her get crushed along with that hug.

"Ready to leave?" Itachi smiles. Sasuke beams back. Ah- but slyly, he reaches for her hand.

"Can we go get some melonpan first?" He casts those huge black eyes upon her– _ugh_ her heart tremors. Itachi's immune though.

"Okaa-san's already making dinner, and it's getting late Sasuke."

"Oh…" But then Itachi takes Sasuke hand and suddenly everything is alright. Suiren hurriedly trots behind them in the direction of the Uchiha compound. She hopes she's not intruding on their moment together, but the path home is soft. The setting sun filters its heavy red glow on the village and everything gains this warm-tinted edge. Suiren thinks this must be one of the few happiest moments they've ever had, so she wants to have a share of this moment. How pathetic.

The trio arrives at the gate and the guard checks them in. Itachi pauses, and he says to Sasuke, "I'll be just a moment. You know the way home, don't you?" As Sasuke nods a _yes_ , Itachi turns back to face her again. Suiren inadvertently straightens her back. Wow this is like a job interview.

When he doesn't speak for a solid minute. Suiren hesitates, "It's getting dark, I should probably leave."

"I'll walk you home."

She blinks. "Oh okay, sure."

They fall into tandem after a moment. Her apartment looms. The frown on her face lasts this whole trip and she mulls over this bizarre scenario. But truthfully, she knows what to do. So, the young girl draws a deep breath and asks, "is everything alright?"

Itachi stops at the stairway leading to her door. "No." The air grows heavy. "I remember a few years ago, you told me there are 'more ways than one' to accomplish a task."

 _Oh_ , she remembers sharply, _it's that_.

"How…" And he walks back towards her, the shadow of his figure steadily grow bigger, and bigger, and bigger. "Did you know?"

She blinks. "What do you mean?"

"Hyōzan-san, stop acting. You had your suspicions something was happening with the Clan long before the actual issue even surfaced."

 _He's only ten_ , she tells herself over and over. _He's only ten, and I'm older and cleverer and more mature and you didn't fuck up. You didn't fuck anything up._

So:

"You know why Itachi-san."

He tilts his head. He's being vague on purpose. This is fine. This is fine. At least he knows he isn't alone in this great big melting mess of a feud between the Clan and the village. She is in it too. No, _she is a victim of the feud as well as him._ Look at them both: one is forced to go too far beyond his age and the other has dared to go too far beyond her age.

"Itachi-san, let's stop lying to each other. You've read the same books as me. You've been in the same _school_ as me, heck even the same house, same family, same clan, same village- so we both know the history of the Clan and its nature. And we're both _clever_ \- you know that. As if I wouldn't notice, you know? And we _both_ know that ever since the Kyuubi massacre, the Clan would get blamed for it all. And Naruto, of course. But, well, politically? It would all 'be' the Clan's fault." _Come on, don't make this difficult please._ "So tell me, what's been happening? What-" Her voice drops to a murmur. "What are the elders saying?"

Itachi's expression is a cool, blank stare. How difficult can one ten-year-old boy be to read? "It would be best if you don't get involved in Clan affairs."

Oh, _boy…_ When did this great gap grow between them? They used to see each other on a weekly basis, yet somewhere between the death of both her parents, and the Academy, and the Uchiha crisis, and his chuuninship, and then his ANBU recruitment, she had begun using '-san' for Itachi and he stopped caring.

"But what if," he murmurs back, and it's as low as the vaguely glowing sun hanging over the Hokage Mountain. "You don't have a choice?"

"That's alright," Suiren replies too quickly, too loudly. "You," and she crunches this word around the cavern of her mouth, her heart. "You can do whatever it is that needs to be done, because… I'll fix it." Yeah, that sounds good. "I'll fix everything, so don't worry."

He doesn't say anything for a long while. Suiren thinks this must be the first time they've ever had a proper conversation.

A stray cat breaks the silence by slipping from an alleyway to rub up against his leg.

"Just please continue to look after Sasuke."

Oh _Itachi_ : ever the diplomatic, secretive, elusive genius. Even in his final moments he's a _lying, lying_ mess.

"Heh, do you even need to ask?" She scoffs and kicks at the ground, managing a sad waver of her mouth. What's going to happen in the future? Will Itachi really die? How much longer will she be around for? How much longer does she have to live for? Will she have to choose her own death again? – All these questions without answers, how much longer can she be _the girl who knows everything_?

Seemingly satisfied with her misdirection (wow she must be a really good liar in this life), Itachi turns to leave. Suiren watches him walk away, and gets a foreboding shiver that it's a bad omen to do so. So of course, right before Itachi disappears beyond the civilian district, he turns back to face her, and gives her a chillingly pointed look:

" _By the way Suiren_ , _you knew long before the Kyuubi Incident though_."

* * *

The rest of grade two passes like a dream. It's without all the theatrical murder threats, the reeling shock of strange bills and Neji's _awful_ right hook, but with an added bonus of the power struggle's heightening tensions—present in Mikoto's reluctance to invite Suiren over more frequently. This is a symphony reaching the end.

A few civilian kids realise the ninja world isn't as glamorous as the chuunin propaganda officers made it out to be, so they wisely choose to drop out and go about a normal life. On the whole however, there's little to differentiate each year by. Suiren falls into a routine admirable by ANBU shinobi: wake up, get dressed, make her own breakfast, lunch and dinner, go to school, get beat on Thursdays by Neji, come home, eat dinner or go to Mikoto-san's house on Fridays (now with a decreasing frequency), practice taijutsu for three hours, revise ninjutsu theories and seals, update her finances, catch up on several novels she's started but never finished, brush her teeth, change into her pyjamas, and fall asleep when she can see the moon high outside her balcony—rinse and repeat.

In her second year, most of her class progress towards chakra control without a hitch. This is the earliest introductions to shinobi technique and theory, mostly for the benefit of the civilian students though, since everyone else can do this in their sleep. She laughs at someone's _massive fuck up_ of an attempt at sticking a leaf onto their forehead. That girl sneers at her. _"Like to see you try_."

Suiren doesn't play nice. When she smugly picks a leaf off the ground, carefully places it in her palm, the girl's face drops. And Suiren feels the familiar rising surge of her chakra blooming from her chest to the palm of her hand as she breathes in—she's chakra-meditated so many times it's practically second nature to rouse the energy inside her, so getting a leaf to stick shouldn't be so hard. Or so she thinks.

The leaf is still there when Suiren opens her palm, along with a bolt of _blinding_ red-hot agony beyond compare wracking her whole body. Her palm burns like her skin has melted off her bone.

"Hah," she whimpers, barely attempting a smug smile. Her vision crumples towards a black ending. She felt oddly faint and oddly dreary, swaying slightly on her feet, as the volcanic pain fades into a throb up her arm. She opens her hand to see the leaf crumple into ashes in the wind. _Oh_ _shit,_ she thought. _Shit._

The other girl gapes. Suiren faintly smiles again, like nothing's wrong. "If you tell anyone, _I will hunt you down._ "

This afternoon holds all the slow, drooling heat of summer in its palm, where strange street cats lie in the cool shade of cement doorways for once. In other words, Suiren can finally reach her awkwardly positioned apartment without stumbling over one cat or another, basking in the sun. Warning: cats are real sensitive souls.

But the air is tight with something more than heat. It's the anticipation of rain and thunder and lightning. Suiren hesitates before her front door. A jagged line of red, broken capillaries on her forearm dizzies her. She grazes her clammy fingers along the wound.

 _Like Lichtenberg scars,_ Suiren fumbles around her pockets for the house key. _Should probably get this checked out_ , but she clenches and unclenches her fist and everything is fine. It barely hurts anymore; there's nothing but a thinly inflamed network of vein-like structures on the surface of her skin. But that's fixable, she's got a nice aloe vera plant on the balcony.

It's just… her chakra _burned_ her. This is the first time she's ever applied chakra to foreign objects and it _burned her_.

"There is something wrong with me," but Suiren keeps these thoughts to herself. Who can she trust here? How will she know this isn't a hallmark of something greater?

And it doesn't happen again.

* * *

In the summer of her seventh year, a boy with dots for eyebrows joins third grade. Hidesato jokes " _it's like on/off buttons haha_ " and doesn't say much else, but Suiren just can't seem to lose that sinister prickle telling her, ' _Kimimaro's bad news_ ' _._ Tenten also transfers into their class from grade two and she remarks her parents has gently warned her to 'stay the hell away from him'. She couldn't care less what Tenten's parents have to say because _Suiren's no longer the top ranking kunoichi_. She held that position for two goddamn years and then went and lost it to a _six-year-old_. On purpose, though? Maybe.

The years may spin faster and faster as they weave monotonously in this dreamscape but Suiren knows things are changing. She can taste in the air. But maybe it's only her. Maybe it's only her trapped in this never-ending dream. There are too many things she thought for long time would just remain that way for a long time, but they all ended up false, one way or another.

The bone-white boy's a bit of a lone wolf anyway—no one really wants to talk to him outside of schoolwork. He's got a funny accent not from any of these streets ("Far east I believe, Land of Water, maybe," Hidesato whispers once, when they walked past him). It's a hollow sound, like Kimimaro's echoing words from an absurdist play, like he finds the language hard to believe, yet he has to say _something_. There is a real disquiet about that, but Suiren spies him reading the same books she owns ( _Revelations of Dead Souls, The Seen and Unseen, From the Eastern Wind_ and _The Voice of the Valley_ ), during breaks on the benches near the chrysanthemum bushes. So, despite her deep-seated feelings, Suiren surmises he can't be all that strange. He's also ridiculously good at taijutsu- like, _so good_ he could be out in the field already. Probably could've sparred Neji to the ground if he hadn't withdrawn, and if an unfamiliar chuunin hadn't delivered a mysterious message to Yamaguchi-sense from _the Hokage_. Suiren wishes she hadn't pretended to be sick to skip the taijutsu exam that day. She's waited _two years_ to see Neji get beat.

But Kimimaro is taken out of taijutsu classes immediately after that.

"Anything on after school today?" Hidesato asks in Maths class third week back.

"No." Suiren never does.

"Wanna come to that bookstore place? Y'know, the one all the normal kids are going for tutoring. My father said that a famous author, the one visiting the village, was spotted there this week."

She shrugs, "Sure." Well, she hasn't heard anything about a famous author, but Suiren sure enjoys blowing all her income on books. Lately though, all she ever seems to find were bargains. It's just- No matter how much generosity the new bookstore owner shows (who has remained largely anonymous since this place was resold a few years ago), these places just don't feel the same to her anymore. Sometimes it feels like the longer her parents have been dead the worse it gets. And the terrible thing is—she isn't the same person she was a lifetime ago. But maybe this is normal. This is okay. This girl is Suiren Hyōzan.

Hidesato must know this unsettling discomfort about bookstores, of course. They don't talk about the many dark-hearted experiences they have between them but it doesn't bother her as much it might have, in another lifetime.

He scrutinises the group of kids they're tailing behind. Suiren spies a little pink-haired girl cradling Jiraya's new _Political Conquests_ novel.

"Ugh that's so _pointless_. If they need a tutor for _theory_ then they might as well sign their fates to Genin Corps," Hidesato remarks like he's overheard adults say that a million times. Only, Suiren knows Hidesato is just full to the brim with jealousy. He's the biggest nerd she's ever met and would definitely kill to get tutored.

Said nerd peers over her shoulder at the book she's staring at when Suiren doesn't reply. A groan grumbles, "Murako _again?_ You've read all 76 versions of his great big tragedy of a life and yet here you are, _still reading Murako_."

"I like Murako," Suiren dismissively sets the book back. "But unlike others, I read him because I like his conversational style. His ideas are modern at worst."

"Half the facts are generalised. All his arguments are just genetic fallacies and are weaker than Sand nin stranded in Land of Water."

Suiren closes her eyes and inhales sharply. When she opens again, her glare is red-tinged. _Takethehighhorsetakethehighhorse_ — "Hidesato, you are a child-" Her jaw drops. She snatches Hidesato's arm and furiously, vigorously jabs behind him. He looks behind him. Suiren stuffs her fist in her mouth to stop her heart exploding, "It's- _it's_ holy Jesus _fuck!_ "

Hidesato's jaw drops. " _Jiraya-sama_ …" he breathlessly whispers. And there the legendary, mysterious, never-seen, never-spoken 'god of everything known to man' is, out in the courtyard of the bookstore, leaning on a chair, laughing animatedly to some irrelevant stranger.

"Actual god, actual Jesus, actual _mmmmMMMphf_ , oh my god let's go let's go!" Suiren fidgets impatiently as she waits for Hidesato to pack up his things. Suiren and her only friend shoot through the shop, darting around a few startled people, and rushes up to the Sannin with breathless hearts.

Jiraya looks away from his tea expectantly when two kids arrive at his table, stars in their eyes. _Ah_ this familiar situation dawns on him. Suiren opens her mouth but flushes shyly as conversation halts between Jiraya and his companion. Hidesato glances at her, and quickly intercepts with an easy-going smile. "Hello Jiraya-sama, I am Sarutobi Hidesato and this is Hyōzan Suiren. We are both massive fans of your work."

There's a moment of glancing up and down before the revered author breaks into a deep, hearty laugh. Jiraya's the kind of man who fills up a whole room from just sitting down in a chair. "So you've read all my books, eh?"

Suiren flushes darker at the implication of his 'really famous works'. "Just the ones you wrote on revitalising the market for shinobi and mercenaries, and the effects of cohabiting with civilians in military villages. But I… really enjoyed _The Tale of the Gutsy Ninja_ and _From the Eastern Wind_."

Jiraya beams at her confession. The girl scours her head for everything she's heard about the Sannin: fought and became legends in the Second Shinobi World War; one of the greatest minds behind the reveal of Grass' obscure blood revolution through his exemplar espionage skills; saved the Sandaime from two assassination attempts (not that the Hokage needed protection but Jiraya was praised as a _real hero_ ), and has his own ongoing list of literary achievements, including the acclaimed literotica _Icha Icha_. What a legend.

"Is it alright if you could sign our books?" Suiren shyly questions. At Jiraya's _why not_ smile, she drops her bag from her shoulders and rummages around to find that copy on Cloud Country's bizarre feral lightning dogs and wind rabbits.

Jiraya accepts Hidesato's pen.

"Can I ask how long are you staying for?"

Jiraya hums and rubs the back of his head, shaggy white mane glinting in the sun. Those deep red lines gleamed brightly in Suiren's eyes. "Not long, just here to see an old teammate of mine." He hands back the two copies of _The Seen and Unseen_.

Suiren's smile freezes, but she doesn't pry further. _Old teammate?_ "Thank you for your time." They bow respectfully and wave goodbye. Hidesato catches a few more glances before he made really awkward eye contact and decides to stop looking back.

"It's like I'm dreaming," He murmurs as they head out of the door. Suiren snorts. A ghostly figure catches her eye. Her eyes narrow and she stops. "Hey Hidesato… isn't that Kimimaro?" He turns around. Pale moss green yukata and that singular funny braid—there odd boy is, talking to the bookstore clerk.

"Oh. Yeah it is."

Suiren continues to walk towards the door. "That's strange," she looks at Hidesato, but he only shrugs. She doesn't think much of it. (A pity.)

"By the way," Hidesato asks just before they part at the intersection of the main street, "What's Jesus?"

Suiren blinks dumbly for a moment.

 _Oh shit_.

"Oh _that!_ I was just researching this religion and I guess it just slipped into my head. Some son of god or something, I dunno." Suiren scratched her head and smiled. Fuck why did Hidesato have to be so perceptive? He smiles at her again and Suiren realises he doesn't believe her at all. Never has believed any of her lies, but she has no real reason for lying, so he takes it as it is.

We all have secrets we don't share.

And slowly and insipidly, Suiren loses contact with Mikoto.

* * *

It's Year of the Monkey, Month of Water, Suiren is eight and pretty much an adult, and Juugo has a smile like almond butter honey.

As the Academy kids move through the grades, there is a small and slow trickle of younger and more talented students skipping a few grades here and there. Suiren isn't one of them, she's happy where she is, thank you very much, but this year there are two other students who transfers into their class without an explanation or background. One of them has vermillion red hair, switches from talking like a smart-ass mouse and an angry hippo in a matter of moments. The other is Juugo: almond butter smile, punch drunk eyes and a nose that's definitely been broken five times or more. She feels jittery, like there's bubbles inflating and bursting in her chest. Like she drank too much soda and now it's all too late for her.

"You like him," Hidesato accuses, judges, and smiles.

"What!" She almost snorts out the honey tea she ordered, all disgustingly sweet. Like her feelings. " _No_ , I do not." Recognising that look on his face again, she defends indignantly, "Dude… I'm eight."

"Me too?" He quizzes with a tilt of his head.

"Well, I don't _like_ ' _like'_ him alright, but I probably like the idea of liking someone. I mean, it's nice, isn't it?"

"Not really, Sui-chan. You sure know a lot about this stuff."

"Well! Okay- Sure. Maybe. I dunno." And here is yet another _whoops_ moment. It feels like any moment, Hidesato will knock her unconscious and drag her traitorous body to Torture and Interrogation, exposing this dumbass girl for who she really is. _My parents are dead_ is on the tip of her tongue, but that sounds even more 'adult' than this conversation already is. And heaps of children have dead parents here, she isn't special. Hidesato's great-grandfather died in their living room because his family didn't want their secrets to be exposed. Who was she to question these things, really?

"Ew. _Cooties_ , Hidesato." Suiren forces back hysterical giggling. _Cooties._ Right.

Hidesato remains unconvinced as always, but he doesn't question her either, as _always_. Suiren wonders how much longer she can stand, before the fall. Before people around her stop holding back. Before she crumbles. Because- this is _absurd._ How- how on _earth_ can you really expect her to keep going like this? Sure, it's been eight years, but she's still Not Suiren. Or maybe she is Suiren. Maybe the whole past life was a dream, except there's no way to ever really be sure… oh god. Someone save her from this reality.

.

.

.

.

But there is no one. There is only her. And certain death at the end of this dusty road.

.

.

.

.

"Hey."

"Hey Sui-chan."

"HEY SUI-CHAN!"

"Oh fucking _heck_ Hidesato, _what?_ "

"I called you three times. What are you doing this afternoon?"

"Going home probably. Why?"

"Would you like to have dinner at my home?"

"What? Oh. I'm going to Mikoto-san's house for dinner."

"Ah. How is Uchiha-san?"

She scrutinises him carefully. "Fine probably. Why? What have you heard?" Hidesato had some serious connections.

He suddenly starts staring at the ground.

"Hidesato, _tell me._ It's fine, I can handle it," she pats her chest—but his expression freezes her cold. Hidesato Sarutobi, for all his annoying habits and weird and wacky ancient expressions, is a _kind_ person. Well, shinobi-kind, anyway. He'd probably have no problem stabbing enemy-nin.

"I really have not heard much, but it sounds serious. And by serious, I mean-"

"That's fine. I don't need to know anymore." Suiren promptly gets up and starts packing her bag.

"Sui-chan-"

"Hidesato, I wasn't supposed to know that anyway. Whatever happens-" _happens_ , "should be fine." And Suiren waves him a goodbye as she runs off with the rest of her classmates. He's still standing there when she dashes out the gate. Alone.

What is she doing? She's powerless really. _She's eight_. So, is she- is she doing the right thing? What's the right thing? Should she just pretend she is not a glitch in the system? Like, she doesn't have the advantages of someone much, much older than an eight year? Who knows so many bits and pieces of this world's history?

Ah. She almost steps onto a dead bird on the path home. Its head is cocked to side, eyes closed peacefully. A mess of maggots and clotted blood eats a hole to the center of its body. Its hollow and decaying— _just. like. her._

Oh, god. How will she go to Mikoto-san's house tonight?

* * *

She ends up going anyway. Buried in the warmth and cosiness of a _real family_ , with _real food_ and _real love_ —Suiren robotically finishes her soup. It's the first decent meal she's had all year.

"Itachi's going to be promoted to ANBU captain next year."

Never mind, she feels like throwing up.

"Oh, Suiren-chan, aren't you hungry?"

She pushes her rice around the bowl. "No it's not that…" Suiren peers around the table. Fugaku, Mikoto and Sasuke. Itachi was off doing stuff in ANBU. Probably killing people, getting close to Hatake Kakashi, learning the secrets of the Sharingan.

And this time next year- _this time next year_ she thinks that maybe they won't be around anymore. At least, not like this. Oh, don't kid yourself, _they won't be around anymore_ and that's final. But she can't just mope around anymore, it's just becoming too depressing. She should make the best of things. Yeah. Just make the best of things.

"I would like to learn the Great Fireball Jutsu."

Fugaku looks at Mikoto in surprise. Mikoto simply nods at her, then gives Fugaku a look, mouthing ' _she wants to improve too, duh_ '.

' _Oh'._

"Very well. We can start after dinner. Get up."

"Right now?"

"Your plate is empty."

"Oh- oh yeah." She quickly totters after Fugaku, but not before looking at Mikoto quickly for support. Mikoto-san nods warmly. Mother-cat sending children off to war.

They're in the compound courtyard. Mostly sand and dirt pavement, with sparse vegetation—perfect for training. There's a river running all the way down to the center of town. Mikoto is probably reading something obscure. Sasuke's disappeared to do his homework (he's so obedient – what happened?).

"What year are you in this year?"

"Fourth."

Fugaku hmphs, crossing his arms across his chest. He's blending in perfectly with the dark sky in his black yukata. "And what? You have only just started chakra exercises?"

"No, we did the leaf exercise last year and we're beginning jutsus this year."

"Tsk. When I was your age I had already mastered five elemental jutsus and begun torture and integration techniques."

That's great to hear Fugaku. I'd love to be a child soldier too.

"Watch. I am only going to show it once." Without warning and faster than Suiren could blink, Fugaku flips through some hand signs and out- bursts- one glorious, unfurling fire ball, disappearing over the river. Her mouth pops open in amazement. _Could she be as great as that too? Oh-_ "And the hand signs," Fugaku glosses over them quickly, for a few times. Suiren's got a good memory. She has to.

"Like this?" The kid shows him. She catches on quickly.

"Yes, correct. Then bring your chakra to the center of your chest, just below your heart—the 5th gate. Visualise what you're going to achieve: _fire_. It's hot, burning, flickering- yes. Now let it out-" And just as Fugaku is all but expecting fire – even a small fireball that's _fine_ it's _good_ –

Nothing happens.

Suiren blinks. She straightens up and looks to Fugaku-san, as if _he knew_ what went wrong.

"Try again."

So, she runs through the hand seals, the pattern becoming ingrained into her memories. _Fire, fire, fire_ , she thinks, prays. _Fire, fire, fire._

And this time the stringent crackle of fire escapes her mouth, drying her lips as she almost flinches away. It's more smoke than fire. Black ash. A fake. (Like her.)

"Fugaku-san?"

The masked disappointment is there in his black eyes. With august solemnity, he beckons her to _try again_. And she does. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Until she's panting from chakra exhaustion. Eventually, all that unravels before her is a spitfire cackle of a ball, the size of a large apple.

Ah… he really had expected so much more. Well, this is fine. Her blood is impure after all. This is expected. Yet, Fugaku is unable to shake off _how much more he had been expecting_ , and how Itachi learnt the Great Fireball Jutsu after only seeing it once—so why couldn't Suiren?

"That's enough. Go home and rest. If you start bleeding from your nose, eyes or ears, go to the hospital immediately."

She doesn't hang her head in shame. It's entirely possible fire is not her natural chakra type. Yet, Suiren is unable to shake off that uncomfortable, disquieting feeling of something ugly, something miserable and something _bad_ , because this isn't enough. Not for her. It's not enough for her to be 'enough'. Oh, if only she has _more_. More power. How could she get more power? Through strength. She needs to become stronger, faster, better. If ninjutsu is a foreign concept, then taijutsu is as innate to her as breathing. After all, the human body does not change between universes.

And so, she trains. She beats her body black and blue. Sometimes Hidesato too. And she's learnt all of Neji's dirty lil' Hyūga tricks. By the end of her eighth year in Konohagakure, Land of Fire, Suiren Hyōzan has understood how to drive her body to the edge of its life. How to _drive herself_ to the edge of her life. What is a rest? What is a book? What is a study? She hauls her ass to the training grounds for hours every day after school, with Hidesato watching as he completes both of their homework. Yeah, she bullies him a little.

(She forgets what Mikoto-san's cooking tastes like.)

Suiren is nine and now her child-bones have taken on the scarring and hardness of someone much, much older. Like, 33 years old, exactly. Haha.

(She loses contact with the Uchihas.)

Lee lands in front of her desk on morning and hollers in capital letters, bold font and exclamation marks after she finally lands Neji in the hospital: _**"WAIT WHAT DID YOU DO?!"**_

She turns and stares dead at him. "100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats and 10 kilometres running. Every day."

(Slowly, and insipidly.)

* * *

 **yeah, the thing around your neck? it's too tight.**


End file.
